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Jerome K. Jerome. 




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Library of Congresa 

Two Copies Received 
AUG 18 1900 

CepyngMMlry 

SECOND COPY. 

Oeliverwl to 

ORDER DIVISION, 
SEP 8 1900 



CorVKKJHT, 1900, BY W. B. CONKEY COMPANY. 



74371 



TO 
THE VERY DEAR AND WELL-BELOVED 

jfclcnD 

OF MY PROSPEROUS AND EVIL DAYS — 
TO THE FRIEND 
WHO, THOUGH, IN THE EARLY STAGES OF OUR ACQUAINT- 
ANCESHIP, DID OFTTIMES DISAGREE WITH ME, HAS 
SINCE BECOME TO BE MY VERY WARMEST 
COMRADE — 
TO THE FRIEND 
WHO, HOWEVER OFTEN I MAY PUT HIM OUT, NEVER (NOW) 
UPSETS ME IN REVENGE — 
TO THE FRIEND 
WHO, TREATED WITH MARKED COOLNESS BY ALL THE FEMALE 
MEMBERS OF MY HOUSEHOLD, AND REGARDED WITH 
SUSPICION BY MY VERY DOG, NEVERTHELESS, 
SEEMS DAY BY DAY TO BE MORE DRAWN 
BY ME, AND IN RETURN, TO MORE 
AND MORE IMPREGNATE ME 
WITH THE ODOR OF HIS 
FRIENDSHIP — 
TO THE FRIEND 
WHO NEVER TELLS ME OF MY FAULTS, NEVER WANTS TO 
BORROW MONEY, AND NEVER TALKS ABOUT HIMSELF — 
TO THE COMPANION 
OF MY IDLE HOURS, THE SOOTHER OF MY SORROWS, 
THE CONFIDANT OF MY JOYS AND HOPES — 
MY OLDEST AND STRONGEST 

IPlpe, 

THIS LITTLE VOLUME 

IS 
GRATEFULLY AND AFFECTIONATELY 

DEDICATED. 
3 



PREFACE. 

One or two friends to whom I showed these 
papers in MS. having observed that they were 
not half bad ; and some of my relations having 
promised to bny the book, if it ever came out, 
I feel I have no right to longer delay its issue. 
But for this, as one may say, public demand, 
I, perhaps, should not have ventured to offer 
these mere "idle thoughts" of mine as mental 
food for the English-speaking peoples of the 
earth. What readers ask nowadays in a book 
is that it should improve, instruct and elevate. 
This book wouldn't elevate a cow. I cannot 
conscientiously recommend it for any useful 
purpose whatever. All I can suggest is, that 
when you get tired of reading "the best hun- 
dred books," you may take this up for half an 
hour. It will be a change. 



CONTENTS. 



PAQE. 

On Being Hard Up q 

On Being in the Blues i8 

On Vanity and Vanities 26 

On Getting On in the World 37 

On Being Idle 47 

On Being in Love 57 

On the Weather 68 

On Cats and Dogs 81 

On Being Shy 98 

On Babies no 

On Eating and Drinking 121 

On Furnished Apartments 133 

On Dress and Deportment 146 

On Memory 158 



THE IDLE THOUGHTS OF AN 
IDLE FELLOW. 



ON BEING HARD UP. 

It is a most remarkable thing. I sat down 
with the full intention of writing something 
clever and original; but for the life of me I 
can't think of anything clever and original ■ — 
at least — not at this moment. The only thing 
I can think about now is being hard up. I sup- 
pose having my hands in my pockets has made 
me think about this. I always do sit with my 
hands in my pockets, except when I am in the 
company of my sisters, my cousins, or my 
aunts; and they kick iip such a shindy — I 
should say expostulate so eloquently upon the 
subject — that I have to give in and take them 
out — my hands I mean. The chorus to their 
objections is that it is not gentlemanly. I am 
hanged if I can see why. I could understand 
its not being considered gentlemanly to put 
your hands in other people's pockets (espe- 
cially by the other people), but how, O ye 
sticklers for what looks this and what looks 
that, can putting his hands in his own pockets 
make a man less gentle! Perhaps you are 
right, though. Now I come to think of it, I 
have heard some people grumble most sav- 
9 



10 IDLE THOUGHTS OF AN IDLE FELLOW. 

agely when doing it. But they were mostly 
old gentlemen. We young fellows, as a rule, 
are never quite at ease unless we have our 
hands in our pockets. We are awkward and 
shifty. We are like what a music-hall Lion 
Comique would be without his opera hat, if 
such a thing can be imagined. But let us put 
our hands in our trousers' pockets, and let 
there be some small change in the right-hand 
one and a bunch of keys in the left, and we 
will face a female postoffice clerk. 

It is a little difficult to know what to do with 
your hands, even in your pockets, when there 
is nothing else there. Years ago, when my 
whole capital would occasionally come down to 
"what in town the people call a bob," I would 
recklessly spend a penny of it, merely for the 
sake of having the change, all in coppers, to 
jingle. You don't feel nearly so hard up with 
elevenpence in your pocket as you do with a 
shilling. Had I been "La-di-da, " that impe- 
cunious youth about whom we superior folk 
are so sarcastic, I would have changed my 
penny for two ha'pennies. 

I can speak with authority on the subject of 
being hard up. I have been a provincial actor. 
If further evidence be required, which I do not 
think likely, I can add that I have been a 
"gentleman connected with the press. " I have 
lived on fifteen shillings a week. I have lived 
a week on ten, owing the other five; and I 
have lived for a fortnight on a great-coat. 

It is wonderful what an insight into domestic 
economy being really hard up gives one. If 



IDLE THOUGHTS OF AN IDLE FELLOW. 11 

you want to find out the value of money, live 
on fifteen shillings a week, and see how much 
you can put by for clothes and recreation. 
You will find out that it is worth while to wait 
for the farthing change, that it is worth while 
to walk a mile to save a penny, that a glass of 
beer is a luxury to be indulged in only at rare 
intervals, and that a collar can be worn for 
four days. 

Try it just before you get married. It will 
be excellent practice. Let your son and heir 
try it before sending him to college. He 
won't grumble at a hundred a year pocket 
money then. There are some people to whom 
it would do a world of good. There is that 
delicate blossom, who can't drink any claret 
under ninety-four, and who would as soon 
think of dining off cats' meat as off plain roast 
mutton. You do come across these poor 
wretches now and then, though, to the credit 
of humanity, they are principally confined to 
that fearful and wonderful society known only 
to lady novelists. I never hear of one of these 
creatures discussing a menu card, but I feel a 
mad desire to drag him off to the bar of some 
common East End public-house, and cram a 
sixpenny dinner down his throat — beefsteak 
pudding, fourpence; potatoes, a penny; half 
a pint of porter, a penny. The recollection of 
it (and the mingled fragrance of beer, tobac- 
co, and roast pork generally leaves a vivid im- 
pression) might induce him to turn up his nose 
a little less frequently in the future at every- 
thing that is put before him. Then, there is 



12 IDLE THOUGHTS OF AN IDLE FELLOW. 

that generous party, the cadger's delight, who 
is so free with his small change, but who never 
thinks of paying his debts. It might teach 
even him a little common-sense. "1 always 
give the waiter a shilling. One can't give the 
fellow less, you know," explained a young 
government clerk with whom I v/as lunching 
the other day in Regent Street. I agreed with 
him as to the utter impossibility of making it 
elevenpence ha'penny; but, at the same time, 
I resolved to one day decoy him to an eating- 
house I remembered near Covent Garden, 
where the waiter, for the better discharge of 
his duties, goes about in his shirt-sleeves — and 
very dirty sleeves they are, too, when it gets 
near the end of the month. I know that 
waiter. If my friend gives him anything be- 
yond a penny, the man will insist on shaking 
hands with him then and there, as a mark of 
his esteem ; of that I feel sure. 

There have been a good many funny things 
said and written about hardupishness, but the 
reality is not funny, for all that. It is not 
funny to have to haggle over pennies. It isn't 
funny to be thought mean and stingy. It isn't 
funny to be shabby, and to be ashamed of 
your address. No, there is nothing at all fun- 
ny in poverty — to the poor. It is hell upon 
earth to a sensitive man ; and many a brave 
gentleman, who would have faced the labors 
of Hercules, has had his heart broken by its 
petty miseries. 

It is not actual discomforts themselves that 
are hard to bear. Who would mind roughing 



IDLE THOUGHTS OF AN IDLE FELLOW. 13 

it a bit, if that were all it meant? What cared 
Robinson Crusoe for a patch on his trousers? — 
Did he wear trousers? I forgot; or did he go 
about as he does in the pantomimes? What 
did it matter to him if his toes did stick out of 
his boots? and what if his umbrella was a cot- 
ton one, so long as it kept the rain off. His 
shabbiness did not trouble him: there were 
none of his friends round about to sneer at 
him. 

Being poor is a mere trifle. It is being 
known to be poor that is the sting. It is not 
cold that makes a man without a great- coat 
hurry along so quickly. It is not all shame at 
telling lies — which he knows will not be be- 
lieved — that makes him turn so red when he 
informs you that he considers great-coats un- 
healthy, and never carries an umbrella on prin- 
ciple. It is easy enough to say that poverty is 
no crime. No; if it were, men wouldn't be 
ashamed of it. It's a blunder, though, and is 
punished as such. A poor man is despised the 
whole world over; despised as much by a 
Christian as by a lord, as much by a dema- 
gogue as by a footman, and not all the copy- 
book maxims ever set for ink-stained youth 
will make him respected. Appearances are 
everything, so far as human opinion goes, and 
the man who will walk down Piccadilly arm in 
arm with the most notorious scamp in London, 
provided he is a well-dressed one, will slink 
up a back street to say a couple of words to a 
seedy-looking gentleman. And the seedy-look- 
ing gentleman knows this — no one better — and 



14 IDLE THOUGHTS OF AN IDLE FELLOW. 

will go a mile round to avoid meeting- an ac- 
quaintance. Those that knew him in his pros- 
perity need never trouble themselves to look 
the other way. Pie is a thousand times more 
anxious that they should not see him than they 
can be; and as to their assistance, there is 
nothing he dreads more than the offer of it. 
All he wants is to be forgotten; and in this 
respect he is generally fortunate enough to get 
what he wants. 

One becomes used to being hard up, as one 
becomes used to everything else, by the help 
of that wonderful old homoeopathic doctor, 
Time. You can tell at a glance the difference 
between the old hand and the novice; between 
the case-hardened man who has been used to- 
shift and struggle for years, and the poor devil 
of a beginner, striving to hide his misery, and 
in a constant agony of fear lest he should be 
found out. Nothing shows this difference 
more clearly than the way in which each will 
pawn his watch. As the poet says somewhere: 
*'True ease in pawning comes from art, not 
chance." The one goes into his "Uncle's" 
with as much composure as he would into his. 
tailor's — very likely with more. The assistant 
is even civil and attends to him at once, to the 
great indignation of the lady in the next box, 
who, however, sarcastically observes that she 
don't mind being kept waiting "if it is a reg- 
ular customer." Why, from the pleasant and 
business-like manner in which the transaction 
is carried out, it might be a large purchase in 
the Three per Cents. Yet what a piece of 



IDLE THOUGHTS OF AN IDLE FELLOW. 15 

work a man makes of his first "pop." A boy- 
popping his first question is confidence itself 
compared with him. He hangs about outside 
the shop, until he has succeeded in attracting 
the attention of all the loafers in the neighbor- 
hood, and has aroused strong suspicions in the 
mind of the policeman on the beat. At last, 
after a careful examination of the contents of 
the windows, made for the purpose of impress- 
ing the bystanders with the notion that he is 
going in to purchase a diamond bracelet or 
some such trifle, he enters, trying to do so with 
a careless swagger, and giving himself really 
the air of a member of the swell mob. When 
inside, he speaks in so low a voice as to be per- 
fectly inaudible, and has to say it all over 
again. When, in the course of his rambling 
conversation about a "friend" of his, the word 
"lend" is reached, he is promptly told to go 
up the court on the right, and take the first 
door round the corner. He comes out of the 
shop with a face that you could easily light a 
cigarette at, and firmly under the impression 
that the whole population of the district is 
watching him. When he does get to the right 
place, he has forgotten his name and address, 
and is in a general condition of hopeless im- 
becility. Asked in a severe tone how he came 
by "this," he stanjmers and contradicts him- 
self, and it is only a miracle if he does not 
confess to having stolen it that very day. He 
is thereupon informed that they don't want 
anything to do with his sort, and that he had 
better get out of this as quickly as possible, 



16 IDLE THOUGHTS OF AN IDLE FELLOW. 

which he does, recollecting- nothing more until 
he finds himself three miles off, without the 
slighest knowledge how he got there. 

By the way, how awkward it is, though, hav- 
ing to depend on public houses and churches 
for the time. The former are generally too 
fast, and the latter too slow. Besides which, 
your efforts to get a glimpse of the public- 
house clock from the outside are attended with 
great difficulties. If you gently push the 
swing door ajar and peer in you draw upon 
yourself the contemptuous looks of the bar- 
maid, who at once puts you down in the same 
category with area sneaks and cadgers. You 
also create a certain amount of agitation among 
the married portion of the customers. You 
don't see the clock, because it is behind the 
door: and in trying to withdraw quietly you 
jamb your head. The only other method is to 
jump up and down outside the window. After 
this latter proceeding, however, if you do not 
bring out a banjo and commence to sing, the 
youthful inhabitants of the neighborhood, who 
have gathered round in expectation, become 
disappointed. 

I should like to know, too, by what mysteri- 
ous law of nature it is that, before you have 
left your watch **to be repaired" half an hour, 
some one is sure to stop you in the street and 
conspicuously ask you the time. Nobody 
even feels the slightest curiosity on the sub- 
ject when you've got it on. 

Dear old ladies and gentlemen, who know 
nothing about being hard up — and may they 



IDLE THOUGHTS OF AN IDLE FELLOW. 17 

never, bless their gray old heads — look upon 
the pawnshop as the last stage of degradation; 
but those who know it better (and my readers 
have, no doubt, noticed this themselves) are 
often surprised, like the little boy who dreamed 
he went to Heaven, at meeting so many people 
there that they never expected to see. For my 
part, I think it a much more independent 
course than borrowing from friends, and I al- 
ways try to impress this upon those of my ac- 
quaintance who incline tov/ard "wanting a 
couple of pounds till the day after to-morrow. " 
But they won't all see it. One of them once 
remarked that he objected to the principle of 
the thing. I fancy if he had said it was the in- 
terest that he objected to he would have been 
nearer the truth ; twenty-five per cent, cer- 
tainly does come heavy. 

There are degrees in being hard up. We are 
all hard up, more or less — most of us more. 
Some are hard up for a thousand pounds; 
some for a shilling. Just at this moment I 
am hard up myself for a fiver. I only want it 
for a day or two. I should be certain of pay- 
ing it back within a week at the outside, and if 
any lady or gentleman among my readers 
would kindly lend it me, I should be very much 
obliged indeed. They could send it to me 
under cover to Messrs. Field & Tuer, only, in 
such case, please let the envelope be carefully 
sealed. I would give you my L O. U. as 
security. 



2 Idle Thoughts 



18 IDLETHOUGHTSOF AN IDLE FELLOW. 



ON BEING IN THE BLUES. 

I can enjoy feeling melancholy, and there is 
a good deal of satisfaction about being thor- 
oughly miserable; but nobody likes a fit of the 
blues. Nevertheless, everybody has them; 
notwithstanding which, nobody can tell why. 
There is no accounting for them. You are 
just as likely to have one on the day after you 
have come into a large fortune, as on the day 
after you have left your new silk umbrella in 
the train. Its effect upon you is somewhat 
similar to what would probably be produced 
by a combined attack of toothache, indiges- 
tion, and cold in the head. You become stupid, 
restless and irritable; rude to strangers, and 
dangerous toward your friends ; clumsy, maud- 
lin, and quarrelsome; a nuisance to yourself 
and everybody about you. 

While it is on, you can do nothing and think 
of nothing, though feeling at the time bound 
to do something. You can't sit still, so put on 
your hat and go for a walk; but before you 
get to the corner of the street you wish you 
hadn't come out, and you turn back. You 
open a book and try to read, but you find 
Shakespeare trite and commonplace, Dickens 
is dull and prosy, Thackeray a bore, and Car- 
lyle too sentimental. You throw the book 



IDLE THOUGHTS OF AN IDLE FELLOW. 19 

aside, and call the author names. Then you 
"shoo" the cat out of the room, and kick the 
door to after her. You think you will write 
your letters, but after sticking at "Dearest 
Auntie — I find I have five minutes to spare, and 
so hasten to write to you," for a quarter of an 
hour, without being able to think of another 
sentence, you tumble the paper into the desk, 
fling the wet pen down upon the table-cloth, 
and start up with the resolution of going to 
see the Thompsons. While pulling on your 
gloves, however, it occurs to you that the 
Thompsons are idiots; that they never have 
supper; and that you will be expected to jump 
the baby. You curse the Thompsons, and 
decide not to go. 

By this time you feel completely crushed. 
You bury your face in your hands, and think 
you would like to die and go to heaven. You 
picture to yourself your own sick-bed, with all 
your friends and relations standing round 5^ou 
weeping. You bless them all, especially the 
young and pretty ones. They will value you 
when you are gone, so you say to yourself, 
and learn too late what they have lost ; and you 
bitterly contrast their presumed regard for you 
then with their decided want of veneration 
now. 

These reflections make you feel a little more 
cheerful, but only for a brief period ; for the 
next moment you think what a fool you must 
be to imagine for an instant that anybody 
would be sorry at anything that might happen 
to you. Who would care two straws (whatever 



20 IDLE THOUGHTS OF AN IDLE FELLOW. 

precise amount of care two straws may repre- 
sent) whether you were blown up, or hung up, 
or married, or drowned. Nobody cares for 
you. You never have been properly appre- 
ciated, never met with your due de.serts in any 
one particular. You review the whole of your 
past life, and it is painfully apparent that 
you have been ill-used from your cradle. 

Half an hour's indulgence in these consider- 
ations works you up into a state of savage fury 
against everybody and everything, especially 
yourself, whom anatomical reasons alone pre- 
vent your kicking. Bed-time at last comes, to 
save you from doing something rash, and you 
spring upstairs, throw off your clothes, leaving 
them strewn all over the room, blow out the 
candle, and jump into bed as if you had backed 
yourself for a heavy wager to do the whole 
thing against time. There, you toss and 
tumble about for a couple of hours or so, vary- 
ing the monotony by occasionally jerking the 
clothes off, and getting out and putting them 
on again. At length you drop into an uneasy 
and fitful slumber, have bad dreams, and wake 
up late the next morning. 

At least, this is all we poor single men can 
do under the circumstances. Married men 
bully their wives, grumble at the dinner, and 
insist on the children's going to bed. All of 
which, creating, as it does, a good deal of 
disturbance in the house, must be a great 
relief to the feelings of a man in the blues; 
rows being the only form of amusement in 
which he can take any interest. 



IDLE THOUGHTS OF AN IDLE FELLOW. 21 

The symptoms of the infirmity are much 
the same in every case, but the affliction 
itself is variously termed. The poet says that 
"a feeling of sadness comes o'er him." 'Arry 
refers to the heavings of his wayward heart 
by confiding to Jimee that he has "got the 
blooming hump." Your sister doesn't know 
what is the matter with her to-night. She 
feels out of sorts altogether, and hopes noth- 
ing is going to happen. The everyday-young- 
man is "so awfully glad to meet you, old fel- 
low," for he does "feel so jolly miserable, 
this evening." As for myself, T generally 
say "that I have a strange, unsettled feeling 
to-night," and ''think I'll go out." 

By the way, it never does come except in the 
evening. In the sun-time, when the world is 
bounding forward full of life, we cannot stay 
to sigh and sulk. The roar of the working 
day drovv^ns the voices of the elfin sprites that 
are ever singing their low-toned miserere in 
our ears. In the day we are angry, disap- 
pointed, or indignant, but never "in the 
blues," and never melancholy. When things 
go wrong at ten o'clock in the morning, we — 
or rather you — swear and knock the furniture 
about; but if the misfortune comes at lo p. m., 
we read poetry, or sit in the dark, and think 
what a hollow world this is. 

But, as a rule, it is not trouble that makes 
us melancholy. The actuality is too stern a 
thing for sentiment. We linger to weep over 
a picture, but from the original we should 
quickly turn our eyes away. There is no pathos 



22 IDLE THOUGHTS OF AN IDLE FELLOW. 

in real misery: no luxury in real grief. We 
do not toy with sharp swords, nor hug a gnaw- 
ing fox to our breasts iof choice. When a man 
or woman loves to brood over a sorrow, and 
takes care to keep it green in their memory.^ 
you may be sure it is no longer a pain to them. 
However they may have suffered from it at 
first, the recollection has become by then a 
pleasure. Many dear old ladies, who daily 
look at tiny shoes, lying in lavender-scented 
drawers, and weep as they think of the tiny 
feet whose toddling march is done ; and sweet- 
faced young ones, who place each night 
beneath their pillow some lock that once 
curled on a boyish head that the salt waves 
have kissed to death, will call me a nasty 
cynical brute, and say I'm talking nonsense; 
but I believe, nevertheless, that if they will 
ask themselves truthfully whether they find it 
unpleasant to dwell thus on their sorrow, they 
will be comipelled to answer "No. " Tears are 
as sweet as laughter to some natures. The 
proverbial Englishman, we know from old 
chronicler Froissart, takes his pleasures sadly, 
and the Englishwoman goes a step further, 
and takes her pleasures in sadness itself. 

I am not sneering. I would not for a mo- 
ment sneer at anything that helps to keep 
hearts tender in this hard old world. We men 
are cold and common-sensed enough for all; 
we would not have women the same. No, 
no, ladies dear, be always sentimental and soft- 
hearted, as you are — be the soothing butter to 
our coarse dry bread. Besides, sentiment is 



IDLETHOUGHTSOF AN IDLE FELLOW. 23 

to women what fun is to us. They do not care 
for our humor, surely it would be unfair to 
deny them their grief. And who shall sa)'- that 
their mode of enjoyment is not as sensible as 
ours? Why assume that a doubled-up body, a 
contorted, purple face, and a g-aping mouth, 
emitting a series of ear-splitting shrieks, point 
to a state of more intelligent happiness than a 
pensive face, reposing upon a little white hand, 
and a pair of gentle tear-dimmed eyes, looking 
back through Time's dark avenue upon a fad- 
ing past? 

I am glad when I see Regret walked with as 
a friend — glad because I know the saltness has 
been washed from out the tears, and that the 
sting must have been plucked from the beau- 
tiful face of Sorrow e'er we dare press her pale 
lips to ours. Time has laid his healing hand 
upon the w^ound, when we can look back upon 
the pain w^e once fainted under, and no bitter- 
ness or despair rises in our hearts. The 
burden is no longer heavy, when we have for 
our past troubles only the same sweet ming- 
ling of pleasure and pity that w^e feel when 
old knight-hearted Colonel Newcome answers 
''aclsnm" to the great roll-call, or w^hen Tom 
and Maggie Tulliver, clasping hands through 
the mists that have divided them, go down, 
locked in each other's arms, beneath the 
swollen waters of the Floss. 

Talking of poor Tom and Maggie Tulliver 
brings to my m^ind a saying of George Eliot's 
in connection with this subject of melancholy. 
She speaks somewhere of the "sadness of a 



24 IDLE THOUGHTS OF AN IDLE FELLOV/. 

summer's evening." How wonderfully true — 
like everything that came from that wonderful 
pen — the observation is! Who has not felt 
the sorrowful enchantment of those lingering 
sunsets? The world belongs to Melancholy, 
then a thoughtful deep-eyed maiden who loves 
not the glare of day. It is not till "light 
thickens, and the crow wings to the rocky 
wood," that she steals forth from her groves. 
Her palace is in twilight land. It is there she 
meets us. At her shadowy gate she takes our 
hand in hers, and walks beside us through her 
mystic realm. We see no form, but seem to 
hear the rustling of her wings. 

Even in the toiling, humdrum city, her 
spirit comes to us. There is a sombre pres- 
ence in each long, dull street and the dark river 
creeps ghost-like under the black arches, as if 
bearing some hidden secret beneath its muddy 
v/aves. 

In the silent country, when the trees and 
hedges loom dim and blurred against the rising 
night, and the bat's wing flutters in our face, 
and the land-rail's cry sounds dreamily across 
the fields, the spell sinks deeper still into our 
hearts. We seem in that hour to be standing 
by some unseen deathbed, and in the swaying 
of the elms we hear the sigh of the dying day. 

A solemn sadness reigns. A great peace is 
around us. In its light, our cares of the work- 
ing day grow small and trivial, and bread and 
cheese — aye, and even kisses — do not seem the 
only things worth striving for. Thoughts we 
cannot speak but only listen to flood in upon 



IDLE THOUGHTS OF AN IDLE FELLOW. 25 

US, and, standing in the stillness under earth's 
dark'ning- dome, we feel that we are greater 
than our petty lives. Hung round with those 
dusky curtains, the world is no longer a mere 
dingy workshop, but a stately temple wherein 
man may worship, and where, at times, in the 
dimness, his groping hands touch God's. 



26 IDLE THOUGHTS OF AN IDLE FELLOW. 



ON VANITY AND VANITIES. 

All is vanity, and everybody's vain. Women 
are terribly vain. So are men — more so, if 
possible. So are children, particularly children. 
One of them at this very moment, is hammer- 
ing upon my legs. She wants to know what I 
think of her new shoes. Candidly I don't think 
much of them. They lack symmetry and 
curve, and possess an indescribable appearance 
of lumpiness (I believe, too, they've put them 
on the wrong feet). But I don't say this. It 
is not criticism, but flattery that she wants; 
and I gush over t?iem with what I feel to my- 
self to be degrading effusiveness. Nothing 
else would satisfy this self-opinionated cherub. 
I tried the conscientious friend dodge with her 
©n one occasion, but it was not a success. She 
had requested my judgment upon her general 
conduct and behavior, the exact case submitted 
being '*Wot oo tink of me? Oo peased wi' me?" 
and I bad thought it a good opportunity to 
make a few salutary remarks upon her late 
moral career, and said: "No, I am not pleased 
with you." I recalled to her mind the events 
of that very morning, and I put it to her how 
she, as a Christian child, could expect a wise 
and good uncle to be satisfied with the carry- 
ings on of an infant who that ver}' day had 



IDLE THOUGHTS OF A^ IDLE FELLOW. 27 

roused the whole house at 5 a. m. ; had upset a 
water jug-, and tumbled downstairs after it at 
7 ; had endeavored to put the cat in the bath at 
8; and sat on her own father's hat at 9:35. 

What did she do? Was she grateful to me 
for my plain speaking? Did she ponder upon 
my words, and determine to profit by them, 
and to lead from that hour a better and nobler 
life? 

No! she howled. 

That done she became abusive. She said: 

"Oo naughty — 00 naughty, bad unkie — 00 
bad man — me tell MAR." 

And she did, too. 

Since then, when my views have been called 
for, I have kept my real sentiments more to 
myself like, preferring to express unbounded 
admiration of this young person's actions, 
irrespective of their actual merits. And she 
nods her head approvingly, and trots off to 
advertise my opinion to the rest of the house- 
hold. She appears to employ it as a sort of 
testimonial for mercenary purposes, for I sub- 
sequently hear distant sounds of "Unkie says 
me dood dirl — me dot to have two bikies.* 

There she goes, now. gazing rapturously at 
her own toes, and murmuring '*pittie" — two- 
foot- ten of conceit and vanity; to say nothing 
of other wickedness. 

They are all alike. I remember sitting in a 
garden one sunny afternoon, in the suburbs of 
London. Suddenly I heard a shrill, treble 

*Early EagUsh for biscuits. 



28 IDLE THOUGHTS OF AN IDLE FELLOW. 

voice calling from a top story window to some 
unseen being, presumably in one of the other 
gardens, "Gamma, me dood boy, me wery 
dood boy, Gamma; me dot on Bob's knickie- 
bockies. " 

Why, even animals are vain. I saw a great 
Newfoundland dog, the other day, sitting in 
front of a mirror at the entrance to a shop in 
Regent's circus, and examining himself with 
an amount of smug satisfaction that I have 
never seen equaled elsewhere, outside a vestry 
meeting. 

I was at a farmhouse once, when some high 
holiday was being celebrated. I don't remem- 
ber what the occasion was, but it was some- 
thing festive, a May- day or Quarter-day, or 
something of that sort, and they put a garland 
of flowers round the head of one of the cows. 
Well, that absurd quadruped went about all day 
as perky as a school-girl in a new frock ; and, 
when they took the wreath otf, she became 
quite sulky, and they had to put it on again 
before she would stand still to be milked. 
This is not a Percy anecdote. It is plain, sober 
truth. 

As for cats, they nearly equal human beings 
for vanity. I have known a cat to get up and 
walk out of the room, on a remark derogatory 
to her species being made by a visitor, while 
a neatly turned compliment will set them pur- 
ring for an hour. 

I do like cats. They are so unconsciously 
amusing. There is such a comic dignity 
about them, such an "How dare you!" "Go 



IDLE THOUGHTS OF AN IDLE FELLOW. 29 

away, don't touch me" sort of air. Now there 
is nothing haughty about a dog;". They are 
"Hail fellow, well met" with every Tom, 
Dick, or Harry that they come across. When 
I meet a dog- of my acquaintance, I slap his 
head, call him opprobrious epithets, and roll 
him over on his back, and there he lies, gaping 
at me, and doesn't mind it a bit. 

Fancy carrying on like that with a cat ! Why, 
she would never speak to you again as long" as 
you lived. No, when you want to win the 
approbation of a cat you must mind what you 
are about, and work your way carefully. If 
you don't know the cat, you had best begin by 
saying, "Poor Pussy." After which add, "did 
'ums, " in a tone of soothing sympathy. You 
don't know what you mean, any more than the 
cat does, but the sentiment seems to imply a 
proper spirit on your part, and generally 
touches her feelings to such an extent that, if 
you are of good manners and passable appear- 
ance, she will stick her back up and rub her 
nose against you. Matters having reached this 
stage, you may venture to chuck her under the 
chin, and tickle the side of her head, and the 
intelligent creature will then stick her claws 
into your legs; and all is friendship and affec- 
tion, as so sweetly expressed in the beautiful 
lines: 

I love little Pussy, her coat is so warm. 

And if I don't tease her, she'll do me no harm ; 

So I'll stroke her, and pat her, and feed her with food, 

And Pussy will love me because I am good. 

The last two lines of the stanza srive us a 



30 IDLE THOUGHTS OF AN IDLE FELLOW. 

pretty true insight into pussy's notions of 
human goodness. It is evident that in her 
opinion goodness consists of stroking her, and 
patting her, and feeding her with food. I fear 
this narrow-minded view of virtue, though, is 
not confined to pussies. We are all inclined 
to adopt a similar standard of merit in our 
estimate of other people. A good man is a 
man who is good to us, and a bad man is a 
man who doesn't do what we want him to. 
The truth is, we each of us have an inborn 
conviction that the whole world, with every- 
body and everything in it, was created as a 
sort of necessary appendage to ourselves. Our 
fellow men and women were made to admire 
us, and to minister to our various require- 
ments. You and I, dear reader, are each the 
center of the universe in our respective opin- 
ions. You, as I understand it, were brought 
fhto being by a considerate Providence in 
order that you might read and pay me for what 
I write; while I, in your opinion, am an article 
sent. into the world to write something for you 
to read. The stars — as we term the myriad 
other worlds that are rushing down beside us 
through the eternal silence — were put into the 
heavens to make the sky look interesting for 
us at night. And the moon, with its dark 
mysteries and ever-hidden face, is an arrange- 
ment for us to flirt under. 

T fear we are most of us like Mrs. Poyser's 
bantam cock, who fancied the sun got up every 
morning to hear him crow. '* 'Tis vanity that 
makes the world go round." I don't believe 



IDLE THOUGHTS OF AN IDLE FELLOW. 31 

any man ever existed without vanity, and, if 
he did, he would be an extremely uncomfort- 
able person to have anything to do with. He 
would, of course, be a very good man, and we 
should respect him very much. He would be 
a very admirable man — a man to be put under 
a glass case, and shown round as a specimen 
— a man to be stuck upon a pedestal, and 
copied, like a school exercise — a man to be 
reverenced, but not a man to be loved, not a 
human brother whose hand we should care to 
grip. Angels may be very excellent sort of 
folk in their way, but we poor mortals, in our 
present state, would probably find them pre- 
cious slow company. Even mere good people 
are rather depressing. It is in our faults and 
failings, not in our virtues, that we touch one 
another and find sympathy. We differ widely 
enough in our noble qualities. It is in our 
follies that we are at one. Some of us are 
pious, some of us are generous. Some few 
of us are honest, comparatively speaking; 
and some, fewer still, may possibly be truthful. 
But in vanity and kindred weaknesses we can all 
join hands. Vanity is one of those touches of 
Nature that make the whole world kin. From 
the Indian hunter, proud of his belt of scalps 
to the European general, swelling beneath his 
row of stars and medals; from the Chinese, 
gleeful at the length of his pigtail, to the 
"professional beauty," suffering tortures in 
order that her waist may resemble a peg-top; 
from draggle-tailed little Polly vStiggins, strut- 
ting through Seven Dials with a tattered par- 



32 IDLE THOUGHTS OF AN IDLE FELLOW. 

asol over her head, to the princess sweeping 
through a drawing-room with a train of four 
yards long; from 'Arry, winning by vulgar 
chaff the loud laughter of his pals, to the states- 
man, whose ears are tickled by the cheers that 
greet his high-sounding periods; from the 
dark-skinned African, bartering his rare oils 
and ivory for a few glass beads to hang about 
his neck, to the Christian maiden, selling her 
white body^ for a score of tiny stones and an 
empty title 'to tack before her name — all march, 
and fight, and bleed, and die beneath its tawdry 
flag. 

-^y* ^Yj vanity is truly the motive-power 
that moves Humanity, and it is flattery that 
greases the wheels. If you want to win affec- 
tion and respect in this world, you must flatter 
people. Flatter high and low, and rich and 
poor, and silly and wise. You will get on fam- 
ously. Praise this man's virtues and that 
man's vices. Compliment everybody upon 
everything, and especially upon what they 
haven't got. Admire guys for their beauty, 
fools for their wit, and boors for their breed- 
ing. Your discernment and intelligence will 
be extolled to the skies. 

Every one can be got over by flattery. The 
belted earl — "belted earl" is the correct 
phrase, I believe. I don't know what it means, 
unless it be an earl that wears a belt instead of 
braces. Some men do. I don't like it myself. 
You have to keep the thing so tight, for it to 
be of any use, and that is uncomfortable. 
Anyhow, whatever particular kind of an earl 



IDLE THOUGHTS OF AN IDLE FELLOW. 33 

a belted earl may be, he is, I assert, get-over- 
able by flattery; just as every other human 
being is, from a duchess to a cat's-meat man, 
from a ploughboy to a poet — and the poet 
far easier than the ploughboy, but butter sinks 
better into wheaten bread than into oaten 
cakes. 

As for lovCj flattery is its very life-blood. 
Fill a person with love for themselves, and 
what runs over will be your share, says a cer- 
tain witty and truthful Frenchman, whose 
name I can't for the life of me remember. 
(Confound it, I ever can remember names when 
I want to) Tell a girl she is an angel, only 
more angelic than an angel ; that she is a god- 
dess, only more graceful, queenly, and heav- 
enly than the average goddess; that she is 
more fairy-like than Titania, more beautiful 
than Venus, more enchanting than Parthe- 
nope ; more adorable, lovely, and radiant, in 
short, than any other woman that ever did 
live, does live or could live, and you will make 
a very favorable impression upon her trusting 
little heart. Sweet innocent ! she will believe 
every word you say. It is so easy to deceive 
a woman — in this way. 

Dear little souls, they hate flattery, so they 
tell you; and, when you say, "Ah, darling, it 
isn't flattery in your case, it's plain, sober 
truth; you really are, without exaggeration, 
the most beautiful, the most good, the most 
charming, the most divine, the most perfect 
human creature that ever trod this earth," 
they will smile a quiet, approving smile, and, 

S Idle Thoughts 



34 IDLE THOUGHTS OF AN IDLE FELLOW. 

leaning against your manly shoulder, murmur 
that you are a dear good fellow after all. 

By Jove, fancy a man trying to make love 
on strictly truthful principles, determining 
never to utter a word of mere compliment or 
hyperbole, but to scrupulously confine himself 
to exact fact! Fancy his gazing rapturously 
into his mistress's eyes, and whispering softly 
to her that she wasn't, on the whole, bad-look- 
ing, as girls went. Fancy his holding up her 
little hand, and assuring her that it was of a 
light drab color, shot with red; and tellmg her 
as he pressed her to his heart, that her nose, 
for a turned-up one, seemed rather pretty; and 
that her eyes appeared to him, as far as he 
could judge, to be quite up to the average 
standard of such things! 

A nice chance he would stand against the 
man who would tell her that her face was like 
a fresh blush rose, that her hair was a wander- 
ing sunbeam imprisoned by her smiles, and 
her eyes like two evening stars. 

There are various ways of flattering, and, of 
course, you must adapt your style to your sub- 
ject. Some people like it laid on with a trowel, 
and this requires very little art. With sensible 
persons, however, it needs to be done very 
delieately, and more by suggestion than actual 
words. A good many like it wrapped up in 
the form of an insult, as — "Oh, you are a per- 
fect fool, you are. You would give your last 
sixpence to the first hungry-looking beggar you 
met;" while others will swallow it only when 
administered through the medium of a third 



IDLE THOUGHTS OF AN IDLE FELLOW. 35 

^ person, so that if C wishes to get at an A of this 
sort, he must confide to A's particular friend B 
that he thinks A a splendid fellow, and beg 
him, B, not to mention it, especially to A. Be 
careful that B is a reliable man, though, oth- 
erwise he won't. 

Those fine sturdy John Bulls, who ''hate 
flattery, sir," "Never let anybody get over me 
by flattery," etc., etc., are very simply man- 
aged. Flatter them enough upon their 
absence of vanity and you can do what you like 
with them. After all, vanity is as much a vir- 
tue as a vice. It is easy to recite copy-book 
maxims against its sinfulness, but it is a pas- 
sion that can move us to good as well as to 
evil. Ambition is only vanity ennobled. We 
want to win praise and admiration — or Fame 
as we prefer to name it — and so ^te write great 
books, and paint grand pictures, and sing sweet 
songs; and toil with willing hands in study, 
loom, and laboratory. 

We wish to become rich men, not in order to 
enjoy ease and comfort — all that any one man 
can taste of those may be purchased anywhere 
for two hundred pounds per annum — but that 
our houses may be bigger and more gaudily 
furnished than our neighbors' ; that our horses 
and servants may be more numerous; that we 
may dress our wives and daughters in absurd 
but expensive clothes; and that we may give 
costly dinners of which we ourselves individu- 
ally do not eat a shilling's worth. And to do 
this, we aid the world's work with clear and 
busy brain, spreading com.merce among its 



36 IDLE THOUGHTS OF AN IDLE FELLOW. 

peoples, carrying civilization to its remotest 
corners. 

Do not let us abuse vanity, therefore. 
Rather let us use it. Honor itself is but the 
highest form of vanity. The instinct is not 
confined solely to Beau Brummels and Dolly 
Vardens. There is the vanity of the peacock, 
and the vanity of the eagle. Snobs are vain. 
But so, too, are heroes. Come, oh ! my young 
brother bucks, let us be vain together. Let 
us join hands, and help each other to increase 
our vanity. Let us be vain, not of our trousers 
and hair, but of brave hearts and working 
hands, of truth, of purity, of nobility. Let us 
be too vain to stoop to aught that is mean or 
base, too vain for petty selfishness and little- 
minded envy, too vain to say an unkind word 
or do an unkind act. Let us be vain of being 
single-hearted, upright gentlemen in the midst 
of a v/orld of knaves. Let us pride ourselves 
upon thinking high thoughts, achieving great 
deeds, living good lives. 



IDLE THOUGHTS OF AN IDLE FELLOW. 37 



ON GETTING ON IN THE WORLD. 

Not exactly the sort of thing for an idle fel- 
low to think about, is it? But outsiders, you 
know, often see most of the game; and sitting" 
in my arbor by the wayside, smoking my 
hookah of contentment, and eating the sweet 
lotus-leaves of indolence, I can look out mus- 
ingly upon the whirling throng that rolls and 
tumbles past me on the great high-road of life. 

Never-ending is the wild procession. Day 
and night you can hear the quick tramp of the 
myriad feet — some running, some walking, 
some halting and lame; but all hastening, all 
eager in the feverish race, all straining life and 
limb and heart and soul to reach the ever- 
receding horizon of success. 

Mark them as they surge along — men and 
women, old and young, gentle and simple, fair 
and foul, rich and poor, merry and sad — all 
hurrying, bustling, scrambling. The strong 
pushing aside the weak, the cunning creeping 
past the foolish; those behind elbowing those 
before ; those in front kicking, as they run, at 
those behind. Look close, and see the flitting 
show. Here is an old man panting for breath ; 
and there a timid maiden, driven by a hard 
and sharp-faced matron; here is a studious 
youth, reading "How to get on in the V/orld " 



38 IDLE THOUGHTS OF AN IDLE FELLOW. 

and letting everybody pass him as he stumbles 
along with his eyes on his book; here is a 
bored-looking man, with a fashionably dressed 
woman jogging his elbow; here a boy gazing 
wistfully back at the sunny village that he never 
again will see ; here, with a firm and easy step, 
strides abroad-shouldered man; and here, with 
a stealthy tread, a thin-faced, stooping fellow 
dodges and shuffles upon his way; here, with 
gaze fixed always on the ground, an artful rogue 
carefully works his way from side to side of 
the road, and thinks he is going forward ; and 
here a youth with a noble face stands, hesitat- 
ing as he looks from the distant goal to the 
mud beneath his feet. 

And now into the sight comes a fair girl, 
with her dainty face growing more wrinkled at 
every step; and now a care-worn man, and now 
a hopeful lad. 

A motley throng — a motley throng! Prince 
and beggar, sinner and saint, butcher and 
baker and candlestick-maker, tinkers and 
tailors, and ploughboys and sailors — all jost- 
ling along together. Here the counsel in his 
wig and gown, and here the old Jew clothes- 
man under his dingy tiara; here the soldier in 
scarlet, and here the undertaker's mute in 
streaming hat-band and worn cotton gloves; 
here the musty scholar, fumbling his faded 
leaves, and here the scented actor, dangling 
his showy seals. Here the glib politician, cry- 
ing his legislative panaceas; and here the peri- 
patetic Cheap-Jack, holding aloft his quack 
cures for human ills. Here the sleek capital- 



IDLE THOUGHTS OF AN IDLE FELLOW. 39 

ist, and there the sinewy laborer;. here the man 
of science, and here the shoe-black; here the 
poet, and here the water-rate collector ; here the 
cabinet minister, and there the ballet dancer. 
Here a red-nosed publican, shouting the praises 
of his vats; and here a temperance lecturer at 
fifty pounds a night; here a judge, and there a 
swindler; here a priest, and there a gambler. 
Here a jeweled duchess, smiling and 
gracious; here a thin lodging-house keeper, 
irritable with cooking ; and here a wabbling, 
strutting thing, tawdry in paint and finery. 

Cheek by cheek, they struggle onward. 
Screaming, cursing, and praying, laug-hing, 
singing, and moaning, they rush past side by 
side. Their speed never slackens, the race 
never ends. There is no wayside rest for 
them, no halt by cooling fountains, no pause 
beneath green shades. On, on, on — on 
through the heat and the crowd and the dust 
— on, or they will be trampled down and lost — 
on, with throbbing brain and tottering limbs — 
on, till the heart grows sick, and the eyes grow 
blurred and a gurgling groan tells those be- 
hind they may close up another space. 

And yet in spite of the killing pace and the 
stony track, who, but the sluggard or the dolt, 
can hold aloof from the course? Who — like the 
belated traveler that stands watching fairy 
revels till he snatches and drains the goblin 
cup, and springs into the whirling circle — can 
view the mad tumult, and not be drawn into 
its midst? Not I, for one. I confess to the 
wayside arbor, the pipe of contentment, and 



40 IDLE THOUGHTS OF AN IDLE f ELLOW. 

the lotus-leaves being altogether unsuitable 
metaphors. They sounded very nice and 
philosophical, but I'm afraid I am not the sort 
of person to sit in arbors, smoking pipes, when 
there is any fun going on outside. I think I 
more resemble the Irishman, who, seeing a 
crowd collecting, sent his little girl out to ask 
if there was going to be a row — " 'Cos, if so, 
father would like to be in it." 

I love the fierce strife. I like to watch it. 
I like to hear of people getting on in it — bat- 
tling their way bravely and fairly — that is, not 
slipping through by luck or trickery. It stirs 
one's old Saxon fighting blood, like the tales 
of "knights who fought 'gainst fearful odds" 
that thrilled us in our school-boy days. 

And fighting the battle of life is fighting 
against fearful odds, too. There are giants 
and dragons in this nineteenth century, and 
the golden casket that they guard is not so 
easy to win as it appears in the story-books. 
There, Algernon takes one long, last look at 
the ancestral hall, dashes the tear-drop from 
his eye, and goes off — to return in three years' 
time, rolling in riches. The authors do not 
tell us "how it's done," which is a pity, for it 
would surely prove exciting. 

But then not one novelist in a thousand 
ever does tell us the real story of their hero. 
They linger for a dozen pages over a tea- 
party, but sum up a life's history with "he had 
become one of our merchant-princes," or, "he 
was now a great artist, with the whole world 
at his feet. " Why, there is more real life in 



IDLE THOUGHTS OF AN IDLE FELLOW. 41 

one of Gilbert's patter-songs than in half the 
biographical novels ever written. He relates 
to us all the various steps by which his office- 
boy rose to be the "ruler of the Queen's 
navee," and explains to us how the briefless 
barrister managed to become a great and good 
judge, "ready to try this breach of promise of 
marriage." It is in the petty details, not in 
the great results, that the interest of existence 
lies. 

What we really want is a novel showing us 
all the hidden under-eurrent of an ambitious 
man's career — his struggles, and failures, and 
hopes, his disappointments amd victories. It 
would be an immense success. I am sure the 
wooing of Fortune would prove quite as inter- 
esting a tale as the wooing of any flesh and 
blood maiden, though, by the way, it would 
read extremely similar; for Fortune is, indeed, 
as the ancients painted her, very like a woman 
— not quite so unreasonable and inconsistent, 
but nearly so — and the pursuit is much the 
same in one case as in the other. Ben Jon- 
son's couplet — 

"Court a mistress, she denies you ; 
Let her alone, she will court you" — 

puts them both in a nutshell. A woman never 
thoroughly cares for her lover until he has 
ceased to care for her; and it is not until you 
have snapped your fingers in Fortune's face, 
and turned on your heel, that she begins to 
smile upon you. 

But, by that time, you do not much care 



42 IDLE THOUGHTS OF AN IDLE FELLOW. 

whether she smiles or frowns. Why could she 
not have smiled when her smiles would have 
thrilled you with ecstasy? Everything comes 
too late in this world. 

Good people say that it is quite right and 
proper that it should be so, and that it proves 
ambition is wicked. 

Bosh! Good people are altogether wrong, 
(They always are, in my opinion. We never 
agree on any single point.) What would the 
world do without ambitious people, I should 
Vike to know? Why, it would be as flabby as a 
Norfolk dumpling. Ambitious people are the 
leaven which raises into wholesome bread. 
Without ambitious people, the world would 
never get up. They are busybodies who are 
about early in the morning, hammering, 
shouting and rattling the fire-irons, and ren- 
dering it generally impossible for the rest of 
the house to remain in bed. 

Wrong to be ambitious, forsooth ! The men 
wrong, who, with bent back and sweating 
brow, cut the smooth road over which Human- 
ity marches forward from generation to genera- 
tion ! Men wrong, for using the talents that 
their Master has entrusted to them — for toiling 
while others play! 

Of course, they are seeking their reward. 
Man is not given that god-like unselfishness 
that thinks only of others' good. But in work- 
ing for themselves they are working for us all. 
We are so bound together that no man can 
labor for himself alone. Each blow he strikes 
in his own behalf helps to mold the Universe. 



IDLE THOUGHTS OF AN IDLE FELLOW. 43 

The stream, in stru<^gling- onward, turns the 
mill-wheel; the coral insect, fashioning its 
tiny cells, joins continents to another; and the 
ambitious man, building a pedestal for himself, 
leaves a monument to posterity. Alexander 
and Caesar fought for their own ends, but, in 
doing so, they put a belt of civilization half 
round the earth. Stephenson, to win a for- 
tune, invented the steam-engine ; and Shakes- 
peare wrote his plays in order to keep a com- 
fortable home for Mrs. Shakespeare and the 
little Shakespeares. 

Contented, unambitious people are all very 
well in their way. They form a neat, useful 
background for great portraits to be painted 
against ; and they make a respectable, if not 
particularly intelligent, audience for the active 
spirits of the age to play before. I have not a 
word to say against contented people so long 
as they keep quiet. But do not, for goodness' 
sake, let them go strutting about, as they are 
so fond of doing, crying out that they are the 
true models for the whole species. Why, they 
are the deadheads, the drones in the great 
hive, the street crowds that lounge about, gap- 
ing at those who are working. 

And let them not imagine either — as they 
are also fond of doing — that they are very wise 
and philosophical, and that it is a very artful 
thing to be contented. It may be true that 
'*a contented mind is happy anywhere," but 
so is a Jerusalem pony, and the consequence is 
that both are put anywhere and are treated 
anyhow. ''Oh, you need not bother about 



44 IDLE THOUGHTS OF AN IDLE FELLOW. 

him," is what is said; ''he is very contented as 
he is, and it would be a pity to disturb him." 
And so your contented party is passed over, 
and the discontented man gets his place. 

If you are foolish enough to be contented, 
don't show it, but grumble with the rest; and 
if you can do with a little, ask for a great 
deal. Because if you don't you won't get any. 
In this world, it is necessary to adopt the prin- 
ciple pursued by the plaintiff in an action for 
damages, and to demand ten times more than 
you are ready to accept. If you can feel satis- 
fied with a hundred, begin by insisting on a 
thousand; if you start by suggesting a hun- 
dred, you will only get ten. 

It was by not following this simple plan that 
poor Jean Jaques Rousseaii came to such grief. 
He fixed the summit of his earthly bliss at liv- 
ing in an orchard with an amiable woman and 
a cow, and he never attained even that. He 
did get as far as the orchard, but the woman 
was not amiable, and she brought her mother 
with her, and there was no cow. » Now, if he 
had made up his mind for a large country 
estate, a houseful of angels, and a cattleshow, 
he might have lived tq possess his kitchen gar- 
den and one head of live stock^ and even pos- 
sibly have come across that vara avis — a really 
amiable woman. 

What a terribly dull affair, too, life must be 
for contented people! How heavy the time 
must hang upon their hands, and what on 
earth do they occupy their thoughts with, sup- 
posing that they have any? Reading the 



IDLE THOUGHTS OF AN IDLE FELLOW. 45 

paper and smoking- seems to be the intellectual 
food of the majority of them, to which the 
more energetic add playing the flute and talk- 
ing about the affairs of the next-door neighbor. 

They never know the excitement of expecta- 
tion, nor the stern delight of accomplished 
effort, such as stir the pulse of the man who 
has objects, and hopes, and plans. To the 
ambitious man, life is a brilliant game — a 
game that calls forth all his tact, and energy, 
and nerve — a game to be won, in the long run, 
by the quick eye and the steady hand, and yet 
having sufficient chance about its working out 
to give it all the glorious zest of uncertainty. 
He exults in it, as the strong swimmer in the 
heaving billows, as the athlete in the wrestle, 
as the soldier in the battle. 

And if he be defeated, he wins the grim joy 
of fighting; if he loses the race, he, at least, 
has had a run. Better to work and fail, than 
to sleep one's life away. 

So, walk up, walk up, walk up. Walk up, 
ladies and gentlemen! walk up, boys and 
girls! Show your skill and try j^our strength; 
brave your luck, and prove your pluck. Walk 
up! The show is never closed, and the game 
is always going. The only genuine sport in 
all the fair, gentlemen — highly respectable and 
strictly moral — patronized by the nobility, 
clergy, and gentry. Established in the year 
one, gentlemen, and been flourishing ever 
since! — walk up. Walk up, ladies and gentle- 
men, and take a hand. There are prizes for 
all, and all can play. There is gold for the 



46 IDLE THOUGHTS OF AN IDLE FELLOW. 

man and fame for the boy; rank for the 
maiden and pleasure for the fool. So walk 
up, ladies and gentlemen, walk up ! — all prizes, 
and no blanks ; for some few win, and as to 
the rest, why — 

"The rapture of pursuing 
Is the prize the vanquished gain." 



IDLE THOUGHTS OF AN IDLE FELLOW. 47 



ON BEING IDLE. 

Now this is a subject on which I flatter my- 
self I really am aii fait The gentleman who, 
when I was young, bathed me at wisdom's 
font for nine guineas a term — no extras — used 
to say he never knew a boy who could do less 
work in more time ; and I remember my poor 
grandmother once incidentally observing, in 
the course of an instruction upon the use of 
the prayer-book, that it was highly improbable 
that I should ever do much that I ought to do, 
but that she felt convinced, beyond a doubt, 
that I should leave undone pretty well everyr 
thing that I ought to do. 

I am afraid I have somewhat belied half the 
dear old lady's prophecy. Heaven help me! 
I have done a good many things that I ought 
not to have done, in spite of my laziness. But 
I have fully confirmed the accuracy of her 
judgment so far as neglecting much that I 
ought not to have neglected is concerned. 
Idling always has been my strong point. I 
take no credit to myself in the matter — it is a 
gift. Few possess it. There are plenty of lazy 
people and plenty of slow coaches, but a gen- 
uine idler is a rarity. He is not a man who 
slouches about with his hands in his pockets. • 



48 IDLE THOUGHTS OF AN IDLE FELLOW. 

On the contrary, his most startling characteri* 
tic is that he is always intensely busy. 

It is impossible to enjoy idling thorough!) 
unless one has plenty of work to do. There 
is no fun in doing nothing when you have 
nothing to do. Wasting time is merely an oc- 
cupation then, and a most exhausting one. 
Idleness, like kisses, to be sweet must be 
stolen. 

Many years ago, when I was a young man, I 
was taken very ill — I never could see myself 
that much was the matter with me, except that 
I had a beastly cold. But I suppose it was 
something very serious, for the doctor said 
that I ought to have come to him a month be- 
fore, and that if it (whatever it was) had gone 
on for another week he would not have 
answered for the consequences. It is an ex- 
traordinary thing, but I never knew a doctor 
called into any case yet but what it transpired 
that another day's delay would have rendered 
cure hopeless. Our medical guide, philoso- 
pher, and friend is like the hero in a melo- 
drama, he always comes upon the scene just, 
and only just, in the nick of time. It is Provi- 
dence, that is what it is. 

Well, as I was saying, I was very ill, and was 
ordered to Buxton for a month, with strict in- 
junctions to do nothing whatever all the while 
that I was there. *'Rest is what you require," 
said the doctor, "perfect rest." 

It seemed a delightful prospect. "This man 
evidently understands my complaint," said I, 
and I pictured to myself a glorious time — a 




* Rest is what you require,' said the doctor. 

Idle Thouglits of an Idle Fellow. 



Pacre 48. 



IDLE THOUGHTS OF AN IDLE FELLOW. 49 

four weeks' dolce far nmete with a dash of ill- 
ness in it. Not too much illness, but Just ill- 
ness enough — just sufficient to give it the flavor 
of suffering, and make it poetical. I should 
get up late, sip chocolate, and have my break- 
fast in slippers and a dressing-gown. I should 
lie out in the garden in a hammock, and read 
sentimental novels with a melancholy ending, 
until the book would fall from my listless 
hand, and I should recline there, dreamily gaz- 
ing into the deep blue of the firmament, watch- 
ing the fleecy clouds floating like white-sailed 
ships across its depths, and listening to the 
joyous song of the birds and the low rustling 
of the trees. Or, when I became too weak to 
go out of doors, I should sit propped up with 
pillows, at the open window of the ground 
floor front, and look wasted and interesting, so 
that all the pretty girls would sigh as they 
passed by. 

And, twice a day, I should go down in a 
Bath chair to the Colonnade, to drink the 
waters. Oh, those waters! I knew nothing 
about them then, and was rather taken with 
the idea. "Drinking the waters" sounded 
fashionable and Queen Anneified, and I 
thought I should like them. But, ugh! after 
the first three or four mornings! Sam Weller's 
description of them, as "having a taste of 
warm flat-irons," conveys only a faint idea of 
their hideous nauseousness. If anything could 
make a sick man get well quickly, it would be 
the knowledge that he must drink a glassful of 
them every day until he was recovered. I 

4 Idle Thoughts 



50 IDLE THOUGHTS OF AN IDLE FELLOW. 

drank them neat for six consecutive days, and 
they nearly killed me; but, after then, I 
adopted the plan of taking a stiff glass of 
brandy and water immediately on the top of 
them, and found much relief thereby. I have 
been informed since, by various eminent med- 
ical gentl.emen that the alcohol must have en- 
tirely counteracted the effects of the chalybeate 
properties contained in the water. I am glad 
I was lucky enough to hit upon the right thing. 
But "drinking the waters" was only a small 
portion of the torture I experienced during 
that memorable month, a month which was, 
without exception, the most miserable I have 
ever spent. During the best part of it, I relig- 
iously followed the doctor's mandate, and did 
nothing whatever except moon about the house 
and garden, and go out for two hours a day in 
a Bath chair. That did break the monotony 
to a certain extent. There is more excitement 
about Bath -chairing — especially if you are not 
used to the exhilarating exercise — than might 
appear to the casual observer. A sense of 
danger, such as a mere outsider might not un- 
derstand, is ever present to the mind of the 
occupant. He feels convinced every minute 
that the whole concern is going over, a convic- 
tion which becomes especially lively whenever 
a ditch or a stretch of newly macadamized 
road comes in sight. Every vehicle that passes 
he expects is going to run into him; and he 
never finds himself ascending or descending a 
hill, without immediately beginning to specu- 
late upon his chances, supposing — as seems ex- 



IDLE THOUGHTS OF AN IDLE FELLOW. 61 

tremely probable — that the weak-kneed con- 
troller of his destiny should let go. 

But even this diversion failed to enliven 
after a while, and the ennui became perfectly- 
unbearable. I felt my mind giving away un- 
der it. It is not a strong mind, and I thought 
it would be unwise to tax it too far. So some- 
where about the twentieth morning, I got up 
early, had a good breakfast, and walked 
straight off to Hay field at the foot of the Kin- 
der Scout — a pleasant, busy little town, reached 
through a lovely valley, and with two sweetly 
pretty women in it. At least they were sweetly 
pretty then; one passed me on the bridge, 
and, I think, smiled; and the other was stand- 
ing at an open door, making an unremunera- 
tive investment of kisses upon a red-faced 
baby. But it is years ago, and I dare say they 
have both grown stout and snappish since that 
time. Coming back, I saw an old man break- 
ing stones, and it roused such strong longing 
in me to use my arms, that I offered him a 
drink to let me take his place. He was a kindly 
old man, and he humored me. I went for 
those stones with the accumulated energy of 
three weeks, and did more work in half an hour 
than he had done all day. But it did not make 
him jealous. 

Having taken the plunge, I went further and 
further into dissipation, going out for a long- 
walk every morning, listening to the band in 
the Pavilion every evening. But the days still 
passed slowly notwithstanding, and I was 
heartily glad when the last one came, and I 



52 IDLETHOUGHTSOF AN IDLE FELLOW. 

was being whirled away from gouty, consump- 
tive Buxton to London with its stern work and 
life. I looked out of the carriage as we rushed 
through Hendon in the evening. The lurid 
glare over-hanging the mighty city seemed to 
my warm heart, and when, later on, my cab 
rattled out of St. Pancra's station, the old fa- 
miliar roar that came swelling up around me 
sounded the sweetest music I had heard for 
many a long day. 

I certainly did not enjoy that month's idling. 
I like idling when I ought not to be idling; not 
when it is the only thing I have to do. That 
is my pig-headed nature. The time when I 
like best to stand with my back to the fire, cal- 
culating how much I owe, is when my desk is 
heaped highest with letters that must be 
answered by the next post. When I like to 
dawdle longest over my dinner, is when I have 
a heavy evening's work before me. And if, 
for some urgent reason, I ought to be up par- 
ticularly early in the morning, it is then, more 
than any other time, that I love to lie an extra 
half-hour in bed. 

Ah ! how delicious it is to turn over and go to 
sleep again: "just for five minutes." Is there 
any human being, I wonder, besides the hero 
of a Sunday-school "tale for boys," who ever 
gets up willingly? There are some men to 
whom getting up at the proper time is an utter 
impossibility. If eight o'clock happens to be 
the time that they should turn out, then they 
lie till half-past. If circumstances change, and 
half-past eight becomes early enough for them, 



IDLE THOUGHTS OF AN IDLE FELLOW. 53 

then it is nine before they can rise; they are 
like the statesman of whom it was said that he 
was always punctually half an hour late. 
They try all manner of schemes. They buy 
alarm clocks (artful contrivances, they go off 
at the wrong- time, and alarm the wrong peo- 
ple). They tell Sarah Jane to knock at the door 
and call them, and Sarah Janes does knock at 
the door, and does call them, and they grunt 
back '*awri," and then go comfortably to 
sleep again. I knew one man who would 
actually get out and have a cold bath; and 
even that was of no use, for, afterward, he 
would jump into bed again to warm himself. 
I think myself that I could keep out of bed all 
right, if I once got out. It is the wrenching 
away of the head from the pillow that I find so 
hard, and no amount of over-night determina- 
tion makes it easier. I say to myself, after 
having wasted the whole evening, "Well, I 
won't do any more work to-night; I'll get up 
early to-morrow morning;" and I am thor- 
oughly resolved to do so — then. In the morn- 
ing, however, I feel less enthusiastic about the 
idea, and reflect that it would have been much 
better if I had stopped up last night. And 
then there is the trouble of dressing, and the 
more one thinks about that, the more one 
wants to put it off. 

It is a strange thing this bed, this mimic 
grave, where we stretch our tired limbs, and 
sink away so quietly into the silence and rest. 

"Oh, bed, oh, bed, delicious bed, that heaven 
on earth to the weary head," as sang poor 



54 IDLE THOUGHTS OF AN IDLE FELLOW. 

Hood, you are a kind old nurse to us fretful 
boys and girls. Clever and foolish, naughty 
and good, you take us all in your motherly lap, 
and hush our wayward crying. The strong 
man full of care — the sick man full of pain — 
the little maiden, sobbing for her faithless lov- 
er — like children, we lay our aching heads on 
your white bosom, and you gently soothe us 
off to by-by. 

Our trouble is sore indeed, when you turn 
away, and will not comfort us. How long the 
dawn seems coming, when we cannot sleep! 
Oh! those hideous nights, when we toss and 
turn in fever and pain, when we lie, like living 
men among the dead, staring out into the dark 
hours that drift so slowly between us and the 
light. And oh ! those still more hideous nights, 
when we sit by another in pain, when the low 
fire startles us every now and then with a fall- 
ing cinder, and the tick of the clock seems a 
hammer, beating out the life that w^e are 
watching. 

But enough of beds and bedrooms. I have 
kept to them too long, even for an idle fellow. 
Let us come out, and have a smoke. That 
wastes time just as well, and does not look so 
bad. Tobacco has been a blessing to us idlers. 
What the civil service clerks before Sir Walt- 
er's time found to occupy their minds with, 
it is hard to imagine. I attribute the quar- 
relsome nature of the Middle Ages young 
men entirely to the want of the soothing weed. 
They had no work to do, and could not smoke, 
and the consequence was they were forever 



IDLETHOUGHTSOF AN IDLE FELLOW. 55 

fig-hting and rowing. If, by any extraordinary 
chance, there was no war going, then they 
got up a deadly family feud with the next-door 
neighbor, and if, in spite of this, they still had 
a few spare moments on their hands, they 
occupied them with discussions as to whose 
sweetheart was the best looking, the argu- 
ments employed on both sides being battle- 
axes, clubs, etc. Questions of taste were soon 
decided in those days. When a twelfth century 
youth fell in love, he did not take three paces 
backward, gaze into her eyes, and tell her she 
was too beautiful to live. He said he would 
step outside and see about it. And if, when 
he got out, he met a man and broke his head 
— the other man's head, I mean — then that 
proved that his — the first fellow's girl — was a 
pretty girl. But if the other fellow broke his 
head — not his own you know, but the other 
fellow's — the other fellow to the second fel- 
low, that is, because of course the other fellow 
would only be the other fellow to him, not the 
first fellow, who — well, if he broke his head, 
then his girl— not the other fellow's, but the 
fellow who was the — Look here, if A broke 
B's head, then A's girl was a pretty girl: but 
if B broke A's head, then A's girl wasn't a 
pretty girl, but B's girl was. That was their 
method of conducting art criticism. 

Nowadays we light a pipe, and let the girls 
fight it out among themselves. 

They do it very well. They are getting to 
do all our work. They are doctors, and barris- 
ters, and artists. They manage theatres, and 



56 IDLE THOUGHTS OF AN IDLE FELLOW. 

promote swindles, and edit newspapers. I 
am looking forward to the time when we men 
shall have nothing to do but lie in bed till 
twelve, read two novels a day, have nice little 
five o'clock teas all to ourselves, and tax our 
brains with nothing more trying than discus- 
sions upon the latest patterns in trousers, and 
arguments as to what Mr. Jones's coat was 
made of, and whether it fitted him. It is a 
glorious prospect — for idle fellows. 



IDLE THOUGHTS OF AN IDLE FELLOW. 57 



ON BEING IN LOVE. 

You've been in love, of course! If not 
j^ou've got it to come. Love is like the 
measles; we all have to go through it. Also 
like the measles, we take it only once. One 
need never be afraid of catching it a second 
time. The man who has had it can go into 
the most dangerous places, and play the most 
foolhardy tricks with perfect safety. He can 
picnic in shady woods, ramble through leafy 
aisles, and linger on mossy seats to watch the 
sunset. He fears a quiet, country house no 
more than he would his ov^n club. He can 
join a family party to go down the Rhine. He 
can, to see the last of a friend, venture into 
the very jaws of the marriage ceremony itself. 
He can keep his head through the whirl of a 
ravishing waltz, and rest afterv\rard in a dark 
conservatory, catching nothing more lasting 
than a cold. He can iDrave a moonlight walk 
adown sweet-scented lanes, or a twilight pull 
among the sombre rushes. He can get over 
a stile without danger, scramble through a 
tangled hedge without being caught, come 
down a slippery path without falling. He can 
look into sunny eyes, and not be dazzled. He 
listens to the siren voices, yet sails on with 
unveered helm. He clasps white hands in 



58 IDLE THOUGHTS OF AN IDLE FELLOW. 

his, but no electric "Lulu"- like force holds 
him bound in their dainty pressure. 

No, he never sickens with love twice. Cupid 
spends no second arrow on the same heart. 
Love's handmaids are our life-long friends. 
Respect, and Admiration, and Affection, our 
doors may always be left open for, but their 
great celestial master, in his royal progress, 
pays but one visit, and departs. We like, we 
cherish, we are very, very fond of — but we 
never love again. A man's heart is a fire- 
work that once in its time flashes heavenward. 
Meteor-like, it blazes for a moment, and lights 
with its glory the whole world beneath. Then 
the night of our sordid commonplace life 
closes in around it, and the burnt-out case, 
falling back to earth, lies useless and uncared 
for, slowly smouldering into ashes. Once, 
breaking loose from our prison bonds, we dare, 
as mighty old Prometheus dared, to scale the 
Olympian mount, and snatch from Phoebus's 
chariot the fire of the gods. Happy those 
who, hastening down again ere it dies out, can 
kindle their earthly altars at its flame. Love 
is too pure a light to burn long among the 
noisome gases that we breathe, but before it is 
choked out we may use it as a torch to ignite 
the cosy fire of affection. 

And, after all, that warming glow is more 
suited to our cold little back-parlor of a world 
than is the burning spirit, love. Love should 
be the vestal fire of some mighty temple^ 
some vast dim fane whose organ music is the 
rolling of the spheres. Affection will burn 



IDLE THOUGHTS OF AN IDLE FELLOW. 59 

cheerfully when the white flame of love is flick- 
ered out. Affection is a fire that can be fed 
from day to day, and be piled up ever higher 
as the wintry years draw nig-h. Old men and 
women can sit by it with their thin hands 
clasped, the little children can nestle down in 
front, the friend and neighbor has his welcome 
corner by its side, and even shaggy Fido and 
sleek Titty can toast their noses at the bars. 

Let us heap the coals of kindness upon that 
fire. Throw on your pleasant words, your gen- 
tle pressures of the hand, your thoughtful and 
unselfish deeds. Fan it with good-humor, 
patience and forbearance. You can let the 
wind blow and the rain fall unheeded then, for 
your hearth will be warm and bright, and the 
faces round it will make sunshine in spite of 
the clouds without. 

I am afraid, dear Edwin and Angelina, you 
expect too much from love. You think there 
is enough of your little hearts to feed this 
fierce, devouring passion for all your long 
lives. Ah, young folk! don't rely too much 
upon that unsteady flicker. It will dwindle 
and dwindle as the months roll on, and there 
is no replenishing the fuel. You will watch 
it die out in anger and disappointment. To 
each it will seem that it is the other who is 
growing colder. Edwin sees with bitterness 
that Angelina no longer runs to the gate to 
meet him, all smiles and blushes; and when 
he has a cough now, she doesn't begin to cry, 
and putting her arms round his neck, say that 
she cannot live without him. The most she 



60 IDLE THOUGHTS OF AN IDLE FELLOW. 

will probably do is to stigg-est a lozenge, and 
even that in a tone implying that it is the noise 
more than anything else she is anxious to get 
rid of. 

Poor little Angelina, too, sheds silent tears, 
for Edwin has given up carrying her old hand- 
kerchief in the inside pocket of his waistcoat. 

Both are astonished at the falling off of the 
other one, but neither sees their own change. 
If they did, they would not suffer as they do. 
They would look for the cause in the right 
quarter — in the littleness of poor human nature 
— join hands over their common failing, and 
start building their house anew on a more earth- 
ly and enduring foundation. But we are so blind 
to our own shortcomings, so wide awake to 
those of others. Everything that happens to 
us is always the other person's fault. Ange- 
lina v/ould have gone on loving Edwin forever 
and ever and ever, if only Edwin had not 
grown so strange and different. Edwin would 
have adored Angelina through eternity, if 
Angelina had only remained the same as when 
he first adored her. 

It is a cheerless hour for you both, when 
the lamp of love has gone out, and the fire of 
affection is not yet lit, and you have to grope 
about in the cold raw dawn of life to kindle it. 
God grant it catches light before the day is too 
far spent. Many sit shivering by the dead 
coals till night comes. 

But, there, of what use is it to preach? Who 
that feels the rush of young love through his 
veins can think it will ever flow feeble and 



IDLE THOUGHTS OF AN IDLE FELLOW. 61 

slow! To the boy of twenty, it seems impos- 
sible that he will not love as wildly at sixty as 
he does then. He cannot call to mind any 
middle-aged or elderly gentleman of his ac- 
quaintance who is known to exhibit symptoms 
of frantic attachment, but that does not inter- 
fere in his belief in himself. His love will 
never fail, whoever else's may. Nobody ever 
loved as he loves, and so, of course, the rest of 
the world's experience can be no guide in his 
case. Alas, alas! ere thirty, he has joined the 
ranks of the sneerers. It is not his fault. 
Our passions, both the good and bad, cease 
with our blushes. We do not hate, nor grieve 
nor joy, nor despair in our thirties like we did 
in our teens. Disappointment does not sug- 
gest suicide, and we quaff success without in- 
toxication. 

We take all things in a minor key as we 
grow older. There are few majestic passages 
in the later acts of life's opera. Ambition 
takes a less ambitious aim. Honor becomes 
more reasonable and conveniently adapts 
itself to circumstances. And love — love dies. 
"Irreverence for the dreams of youth" soon 
creeps like a chilling frost upon our hearts. 
The tender shoots and expanding flowers are 
nipped and withered, and, of a vine that 
yearned to stretch its tendrils round the world, 
there is left but a sapless stump. 

My fair friends will deem all this rank 
heresy, I know. So far from a man's not lov- 
ing after he, has passed boyhood, it is not till 
there is a good deal of gray in his hair that they 



62 IDLE THOUGHTS OF AN IDLE FELLOW. 

think his protestations at all worthy of atten- 
tion. Young ladies take their notions of our 
sex from the novels written by their own, and, 
compared with the monstrosities that masque- 
rade for men in the pages of that nightmare 
literature, Pythagoras's plucked bird and 
Frankenstein's demon were fair average speci- 
mens of humanity. 

In these so-called books, the chief lover, or 
Greek god, as he is admiringly referred to —by 
the way, they do not say which "Greek god" 
it is that the gentleman bears such a striking 
likeness to, it might be hump-backed Vulcan, 
or double-faced Janus, or even driveling Sile- 
nus, the god of abstruse mysteries. He resem- 
bles the whole family of them, however, in 
being a blackguard, and perhaps this is what 
is meant. To even the little manliness his 
classical prototypes possessed, though, he can 
lay no claim whatever, being a listless, effemi- 
nate noodle, on the shady side of forty. But 
oh! the depth and strength of this elderly 
party's emotion for some bread-and-butter 
school-girl! Hide your heads, 3^e young 
Romeos and Leanders, this blase old beau 
loves with an hysterical fervor that requires 
four adjectives to every noun to properly de- 
scribe. 

It is well, dear ladies, for us old sinners, 
that you study only books. Did you read man- 
kind, you would know that the lad's shy stam- 
mering tells a truer tale than our bold elo- 
quence. A boy's love comes from a full heart; 
a man's is more often the result of a full 



IDLE THOUGHTS OF AN IDLE FELLOW. 63 

Stomach. Indeed, a man's sluggish current 
may not be called love, compared with the 
rushing fountain that wells up, when a boy's 
heart is struck with the heavenly rod. If you 
would taste love, drink of the pure stream that 
youth pours out at your feet. Do not wait till it 
has become a muddy river before you stoop to 
catch its waves. 

Or is it that you like its bitter flavor; that 
the clear, limpid water is insipid to your pal- 
ate, and that the pollution of its after-course 
gives it a relish to your lips? Must we believe 
those who tell us that a hand foul with the 
filth of a shameful life is the only one a young 
girl cares to be caressed by? 

That is the teaching that is bawled out day 
by day, from between those yellow covers. 
Do they ever pause to think, I wonder, those 
Devil's Lady-Helps, what mischief they are 
doing crawling about God's garden, and tell- 
ing childish Eves and silly Adams that sin is 
sweet, and that decency is ridiculous and vul- 
gar? How many an innocent girl do they not 
degrade into an evil-minded woman? To how 
many a weak lad do they not point out the 
dirty by-path as the shortest cut to a maiden's 
heart? It is not as if they wrote of life as it 
really is. Speak truth, and right will take care 
of itself. But their pictures are coarse daubs 
painted from the sickly fancies of their own 
diseased imagination. 

We want to think of women not — as their 
own sex would show them — as Lorelis luring 
us to destruction, but as good angels beckon- 



64 IDLE THOUGHTS OF AN IDLE FELLOW. 

ing us upward. They have more power for 
good or evil than they dream of. It is just at 
the very age when a man's character is form- 
ing that he tumbles into love, and then the 
lass he loves has the making or marring of 
him. Unconsciously he molds himself to what 
she would have him, good or bad. I am sorry 
to have to be ungallant enough to say that I 
do not think they always use their influence 
for the best. Too often the female world is 
bounded hard and fast within the limits of the 
commonplace. Their ideal hero is a prince of 
littleness, and to become that many a powerful 
mind, enchanted by love, is *'lost to life and 
use, and name and fame. ' ' 

And yet, women, you could make us so 
much better, if you only would. It rests wath 
you, more than with all the preachers, to roll 
this world a little nearer Heaven. Chivalry 
is not dead ; it only sleeps for want of work to 
do. It is you who must wake it to noble 
deeds. You must be worthy of knightly wor- 
ship. You must be higher than ourselves. It 
was for Una that the Red Cross Knight did 
war. For no painted, mincing, court dame 
could the dragon have been slain. Oh, ladies 
fair, be fair in mind and soul as well as face, 
so that brave knights may win glory in your 
service! Oh, w^oman, throw off yoor disguis- 
ing cloaks of selfishness, effrontery, and affec- 
tation! Stand forth once more a queen in 
your royal robe of simple purity. A thousand 
swords, now rusting in ignoble sloth, shall 
leap from their scabbards to do battle for your 



IDLE THOUGHTS OF AN IDLE FELLOW. 65 

honor against wrong. A thousand Sir Rolands 
shall lay lance in rest, and Fear, Avarice, 
Pleasure, and Ambition shall go down in the 
dust before your colors. 

What noble deeds were we not ripe for in 
the days when we loved? What noble lives 
could we not have lived for her sake? Our 
love was a religion we could have died for. It 
was no mere human creature like ourselves 
that we adored. It was a queen that we paid 
homage to, a goddess that we worshiped. 

And how madly we did worship ! And how 
sweet it was to worship! Ah, lad, cherish love's 
young dream while it lasts ! You will know, 
too soon, how truly little Tom Moore sang, 
when he said that there was nothing half so 
sv/eet in life. Even when it brings misery, it 
is a wild, romantic misery, all unlike the dull, 
worldly pain of after sorrows. When you have 
lost her — when the light is gone out from your 
life, and the world stretches before you a long, 
dark horror, even then a half enchantment 
mingles with your despair. 

And who would not risk its terrors to gain 
its raptures? Ah, what raptures they were? 
The mere recollection thrills you. How deli- 
cious it was to tell her that you loved her, that 
you lived for her, that you would die for her ! 
How you did rave, to be sure, what floods of 
extravagant nonsense you poured forth, and 
oh, how cruel it was of her to pretend not to 
believe you! In what awe you stood of her! 
How miserable you were when you had 
offended her! And yet, how pleasant to be 

5 Idle Thonghts 



66 IDLE THOUGHTS OF AN IDLE FELLOW. 

bullied by her, and to sue for pardon without 
having the slightest notion of what your fault 
was! How dark the world was when she 
snubbed you, as she often did, the little rogue, 
just to see yau look wretched ; how sunny when 
she smiled! How jealous you were of every 
one about her! How you hated every man 
she shook hands with, every woman she kissed 
— the maid that did her hair, the boy that 
cleaned her shoes, the dog she nursed — though 
you had to be respectful to the last-named! 
How you looked forward to seeing her, how 
stupid you were when you did see her, staring 
at her without saying a word! How impos- 
sible it was for you to go out at any time of the 
day or night without finding yourself event- 
ually opposite her windows! You hadn't pluck 
enough to go in, but you hung about the cor- 
ner and gazed at the outside. Oh, if the house 
had only caught fire — it was insured, so it 
wouldn't have mattered — and you could have 
rushed in and saved her at the risk of your 
life, and have been terribly burnt and injured! 
Anything to serve her. Even in little things 
that was so sweet. How you would watch her, 
spaniel-like, to anticipate her slightest wish! 
How proud you were to do her bidding! How 
delightful it was to be ordered about by her! 
To devote your whole life to her, and to never 
think of yourself, seemed such a simple thing. 
You would go without a holiday to lay a hum- 
ble offering at her shrine, and felt more than 
repaid if she only deigned to accept it. How 
precious to you was everything that she had 



IDLE THOUGHTS OF AN IDLE FELLOW. 67 

hallowed by her touch — her little glove, the 
ribbon she had worn, the rose that had nestled 
in her hair, and whose withered leaves still 
mark the poems you never care to look at now. 

And oh, how beautiful she was, how won- 
drous beautiful! It was as some angel enter- 
ing the room, and all else became plain and 
earthly. She was too sacred to be touched. It 
seemed almost presumption to gaze at her. 
You would as soon have thought of kissing her 
as of singing comic songs in a cathedral. It 
was desecration enough to kneel and timidly 
raise the gracious little hand to your lips. 

Ah, those foolish days, those foolish days, 
when we were unselfish, and pure-minded; 
those foolish days, when our simple hearts 
were full of truth, and faith, and reverence! 
Ah, those foolish days of noble longings and of 
noble strivings! And oh, these wise, clever 
days, when we know that money is the only 
prize worth striving for, when we believe in 
nothing else but meanness and lies, when we 
care for no living creature but ourselves! 



68 IDLE THOUGHTS OF AN IDLE FELLOW. 



ON THE WEATHER. 

Things do go so contrary-like with me. I 
wanted to hit upon an especially novel, out-of- 
the-way subject for one of these articles. "I 
will write one paper about something alto- 
gether new," I said to myself; "something 
that nobody else has ever written or talked 
about before ; and then I can have it all my 
own way." And I went about for days, trying 
to think of something of this kind, and I 
couldn't. And Mrs. Cutting, our charwoman, 
came yesterday — I don't mind mentioning her 
name, because I know she will not see this 
book. She would not look at such a frivolous 
publication. She never reads anything but the 
Bible and "Llo3^d's Weekly News." All other 
literature she considers unnecessary and sinful. 

She said: "Lor', sir, you do look worried." 

I said: "Mrs. Cutting, I am trying to think 
of a subject, tne discussion of which will come 
upon the world in the nature of a startler — 
some subject upon which no previous human 
being has ever said a w^ord — some subject that 
will attract by its novelty, invigorate by its 
surprising freshness." 

She laughed, and said I was a funny gentle- 
man. 

That's my luck again. When I make serious 



IDLE THOUGHTS OF AN IDLE FELLOW. 69 

observations, people chuckle ; when I attempt 
a joke, nobody sees it. I had a beautiful one 
last week. I thought it so good, and I worked 
it up, and brought it in artfully at a dinner- 
party. I forgot how exactly, but v/e had been 
talking about the attitude of Shakespeare 
toward the Reformation, and I said something, 
and immediately added: "Ah, that reminds 
me ; such a funny thing happened the other 
day in Whitechapel. " "Oh," said they; 
"what was that?" "Oh, 'twas awfully funny," 
I replied, beginning to giggle myself; "it will 
make you roar;" and I told it them. 

There was dead silence when I finished — it 
was one of those long jokes, too, and then, at 
last, somebody said: "And that was the joke?" 

I assured them that it was, and they were 
very polite, and took my word for it. AH but 
one old gentleman, at the other end of the 
table, who wanted to know which was the joke 
what he said to her, or what she said to him ; 
and we argued it out. 

Some people are too much the other way. I 
knew a fellow once, whose natural tendency to 
laugh at everything was so strong that, if you 
wanted to talk seriously to him, you had to ex- 
plain beforehand that what you were going to 
say would not be amusing. Unless you got 
him to clearly understand this, he would go off 
into fits of merriment over every word you 
uttered. I have known him, on being asked 
the time, stop short in the middle of the road, 
slap his leg, and burst into a roar of laughter. 
One never dared say anything really funny to 



70 IDLE THOUGHTS OF AN IDLE FELLOW. 

that man. A good joke would have killed him 
on the spot. 

In the present instance, I vehemently repu- 
diated the accusation of frivolity, and pressed 
Mrs. Cutting for practical ideas. She then 
became thoughtful, and hazarded "sainplers, " 
saying that she never heard them spoken much 
of now, but that they used to be all the rage 
when she was a girl. 

I declined samplers, and begged her to think 
again. She pondered a long while, with a tea- 
tray in her hands, and at last suggested the 
weather, which she was sure had been most 
trying of late. 

And ever since that idiotic suggestion, I 
have been unable to get the weather out of my 
thoughts, or anything else in. 

It certainly is most wretched weather. At 
all events, it is so, now, at the time I am writ- 
ing, and if it isn't particularly unpleasant 
when I come to be read, it soon will be. 

It always is wretched weather, according to 
us. The weather is like the Government, 
always in the wrong. In summer time we say it 
is stifling; in winter that it is killing; in 
spring and autumn we find fault with it for be- 
ing neither one thing nor the other, and wish 
it would make up its mind. If it is fine, we 
say the country is being ruined for want of 
rain ; if it does rain, we pray for fine weather. 
If December passes without snow, we indig- 
nantly demand to know what has become of our 
good old-fashioned winters, and talk as if we 
had been cheated out of something we had 



IDLE THOUGHTS OF AN IDLE FELLOW. 71 

boug-ht and paid for; and when it does snow, 
our "language is a disgrace to a Christian na- 
tion. We shall never be content until each 
man makes his own weather and keeps it to 
himself. 

If that cannot be arranged, we would rather 
do without it altogether. 

Yet I think it is only to us in cities that all 
weather is unwelcome. In her own home, the 
country, Nature is sweet in all her moods. 
Wliat can be more beautiful than the snow, 
falling big with mystery in silent softness, 
decking the fields and trees with white as if for 
a fairy wedding! And how delightful is a walk 
when the frozen ground rings beneath our 
swinging tread — when our blood tingles in the 
rare keen air, and the sheep dog's distant bark 
and children's laughter peals faintly clear like 
Alpine bells across the open hills! And then 
skating! scudding with wings of steel across 
the swaying ice, making whirring music as we 
fly. And oh, how dainty is spring — Nature at 
sweet eighteen! When the little, hopeful 
leaves peep out so fresh and green, so pure and 
bright, like young lives pushing shyly out into 
the bustling world ; when the fruit-tree blos- 
soms, pink and white, like village maidens in 
their Sunday frocks, hide each whitewashed 
cottage in a cloud of fragile splendor; and the 
cuckoo's note upon the breeze is wafted 
through the woods! And summer, with its 
deep, dark green, and drowsy hum — when the 
rain-drops whisper solemn secrets to the listen- 
ing leaves, and the twilight lingers in the 



72 IDLE THOUGHTS OF AN IDLE FELLOW. 

lanes ! And autumn ! ah, how sadly fair, with 
its golden glow, and the dying grandeur of its 
tinted woods — its blood-red sunsets, and its 
ghostly evening mists, with its busy murmur 
of reapers, and its laden orchards, and the call- 
ing of the gleaners, and the festivals of 
praise ! 

The ver}?- rain, and sleet, and hail seem only 
Nature's useful servants, when found doing 
their simple duties in the country; and the 
East Wind himself is nothing worse than a 
boisterous friend, when we meet him between 
the hedgerows. 

But in the city, where the painted stucco 
blisters under the smoky sun, and the sooty 
rain brings slush and mud, and the snow lies 
piled in dirty heaps, and the chill blasts whistle 
down dingy streets, and shriek round flaring 
gas-lit corners, no face of Nature charms us. 
Weather in towns is like a skylark in a count- 
ing-house — out of place, and in the way. 
Towns ought to be covered in, warmed by hot- 
water pipes, and lighted by electricity. The 
weather is a country lass, and does not appear 
to advantage in town. We liked well enough 
to flirt with her in the hay-field, but she does 
not seem so fascinating when we meet her in 
Pall Mall. There is too much of her there. 
The frank, free laugh and hearty voice that 
sounded so pleasant in the dairy, jars against 
the artificiality of town-bred life, and her ways 
become exceedingly trying. 

Just lately she has been favoring us with 
almost incessant rain for about three weeks: 



IDLE THOUGHTS OF AN IDLE FELLOW. 73 

and I am a demd, damp, moist, unpleasant 
body, as Mr. Mantelini puts it. 

Our next-door neighbor comes out in the 
back garden every now and then, and says it's 
doing the country a world of good — not his 
coming out into the back garden, but the wea- 
ther. He doesn't understand anything about 
it, but ever since he started a cucumber frame 
last summer, he has regarded himself in the 
light of an agriculturist, and talks in this ab- 
surd way with the idea of impressing the rest 
of the terrace with the notion that he is a re- 
tired farmer. I can only hope that for this 
once he is correct, and that the weather really 
is doing good to something, because it is doing 
me a considerable amount of damage. It is 
spoiling both my clothes and my temper. The 
latter I can afford, as I have a good supply of 
it, but it wounds me to the quick to see my 
dear old hats and trousers, sinking, prema- 
turely worn and aged, beneath the cold world's 
blasts and snows. 

There was my new spring suit, too. A beau- 
tiful suit it was, and now it is hanging up so 
bespattered with mud, I can't bear to look at it. 

That was Jim's fault, that was. I should 
never have gone out in it that night, if it had 
not been for him. I was just trying it on when 
he came in. He threw up his arms with a wild 
yell, the moment he caught sight of it, and ex- 
claimed that he had "got 'em again!" 

I said: "Does it fit all right behind?" 

"Spiffin, old man," he replied. And then 
he wanted to know if I was coming out. 



74 IDLE THOUGHTS OF AN IDLE FELLOW. 

I said "no," at first, but he overruled me. 
He said that a man with a suit like that had 
no right to stop indoors. "Every citizen," said 
he, "owes a duty to the public. Each one 
should contribute to the general happiness, as 
far as lies in his power. Come out, and give 
the girls a treat. " 

Jim is slangy. I don't know where he picks 
it up. It certainly is not from me. 

I said: "Do you think it will really please 
'em?" 

He said it would be like a day in the country 
to them. 

That decided me. It was a lovely evening, 
and I went. 

When I got home, I undressed and rubbed 
myself down with whisky, put my feet in hot 
water, and a mustard plaster on my chest, had 
a basin of gruel and a glass of hot brandy and 
water, tallowed my nose and went to bed. 

These prompt and vigorous measures, aided 
by a naturally strong constitution, were the 
means of preserving my life; but as for the 
suit! Well, there isn't a suit; it's a splash- 
board. 

And I did fancy that suit too. But that's 
just the way. I never do get particularly 
fond of anything in this world, but what some- 
thing dreadful happens it. I had a tame rat 
when I was a boy, and I loved that animal as 
only a boy would love an old water rat; and, 
one day, it fell into a large dish of gooseberry- 
fool that was standing to cool in the kitchen, 



IDLE THOUGHTS OF ANMDLE FELLOW. 75 

and nobody knew what became of the poor 
creature, until the Second helping. 

I do hate wet weather, in town. At least, it 
is not so much the wet, as the mud, that I 
object to. Somehow or other, I seem to pos- 
sess an irresistible alluring- power over mud. 
I have only to show myself in the streets on a 
muddy day to be half smothered by it. It all 
comes of being so attractive, as the old lady 
said when she was struck by lightning. Other 
people can go out on dirty days, and walk 
about for hours without getting a speck upon 
themselves; while, if I go across the road, I 
come back a perfect disgrace to be seen (as, 
in my boyish days, my poor dear mother used 
often to tell me). If there were only one dab 
of mud to be found in the whole of London, I 
am convinced I should carry it off from all 
competitors. 

I wish I could return the affection, but I fear 
I never shall be able to. I have a horror of 
what they call the "London particular." I 
feel miserable and muggy all through a dirty 
day, and it is quite a relief to pull one's clothes 
off and get into bed, out of the way of it all. 
Everything goes wrong in wet weather. I 
don't know how it is, but there always seem to 
me to be more people, and dogs, and perambu- 
lators, and cabs, and carts, about in wet 
weather, than at any other time, and they all 
get in your way more, and everybody is so 
disagreeable — except myself — and it does make 
me so wild. And then, too, somehow, I always 
find myself carrying more things in wet 



76 IDLE THOUGHTS OF AN IDLE FELLOW. 

weather than in dry; and, when you have a 
bag, and three parcels, and a newspaper; and 
it suddenly comes on to rain, you can't open 
your umbrella. 

Which reminds me of another phase of the 
weather that I can't bear, and that is April 
weather (so-called, because it always comes in 
May). Poets think it very nice. As it does 
not know its own mind five minutes together, 
they liken it to a woman ; and it is supposed 
to be very charming on that account. I don't 
appreciate it, myself. Such lightning change 
business may be all very agreeable in a girl. 
It is no doubt highly delightful to have to do 
with a person who grins one moment about 
nothing at all, and snivels the next for pre- 
cisely the same cause, and who then giggles, 
and then sulks, and who is rude, and affec- 
tionate, and bad-tempered, and jolly, and, 
boisterous, and silent, and passionate, and 
cold, and standoffish, and flopping, all in one 
minute (mind I don't say this. It is those 
poets. And they are supposed to be connois- 
seurs of this sort of thing) ; but in the weather, 
the disadvantages of the system are more ap- 
parent. A woman's tears do not make one 
wet, but the rain does; and her coldness does 
not lay the foundations of asthma and rheu- 
matism, as the east wind is apt to. I can pre- 
pare for, and put up with a regularly bad day, 
but these ha'porth-of-all-sorts kind of days do 
not suit me. It aggravates me to see a bright 
blue sky above me, when I am walking along 
wet through ; and there is something so exas- 



IDLE THOUGHTS OF AN IDLE FELLOW. 77 

perating about the way the stin comes out 
smiling after a drenching shower, and seems 
to say: ''Lord love you, you don't mean to say 
you're wet? Well, I am surprised. Why it 
was only my fun. " 

They don't give you time to open or shut 
your umbrella in an English April, especially 
if it is an "automaton" one — the umbrella I 
mean, not the April. 

I bought an "automaton" once in April, and 
I did have a time with it ! I wanted an um- 
brella, and I went into a shop in the Strand, 
and told them so, and they said — 

"Yes sir; what sort of an umbrella would 
you like?" 

I said I should like one that would keep the 
rain off, and that would not allow itself to 
be left behind in a railway carriage. 

"Try an 'automaton?' " said the shopman. 

"W^hat's an 'automaton?' " said I. 

"Oh, it's a beautiful arrangement," replied 
the men, with a touch of enthusiasm. "It 
opens and shuts itself." 

I bought one, and found that he was quite 
correct. It did open and shut itself. I had 
no control over it whatever. When it began 
to rain, which it did, that season, every alter- 
nate five minutes, I used to try and get the 
machine to open but it would not budge; and 
then I used to stand and struggle with the 
wretched thing, and shake it, and swear at it, 
while the rain poured down in torrents. Then 
the moment the rain ceased, the absurd thing 
would go up suddenly with a jerk, and would 



78 IDLE THOUGHTS OF AN IDLE FELLOW. 

not come down again; and I had to walk about 
under a bright blue sky, with an umbrella over 
my head, wishing- that it would come on to 
rain again, so that it might not seem that I 
was insane. 

When it did shut, it did so unexpectedly, 
and knocked one's hat off. 

I don't know why it should be so, but it is an 
undeniable fact that there is nothing makes a 
man look so supremely ridiculous as losing his 
hat. The feeling of helpless misery that 
shoots down one's back on suddenly becoming 
aware that one's head is bare is among the 
most bitter ills the flesh is heir to. And then 
there is the wild chase after it, accompanied 
by an excitable small dog, who thinks it is a 
game, and in the course of which you are cer- 
tain to upset three or four innocent children 
— to say nothing of their mothers — butt a fat 
old gentleman on to the top of the perambu- 
lator, and cannon off a ladies' seminary into 
the arms of a wet sweep. After this, the 
idiotic hilarity of the spectators, and the dis- 
reputable appearance of the hat, when recov- 
ered, appear but of minor importance. 

Altogether, what between March winds, 
April showers, and the entire absence of May 
flowers, spring is not a success in cities. It 
is all very well in the country, as I have said, 
but in towns whose population is anything 
over ten thousand, it most certainly ought to 
be abolished. In the world's grim workshops, 
it is like the children — out of place. Neither 
show to advantage amidst the dust and din. 



IDLE THOUGHTS OF AN IDLE FELLOW. 79 

It seems so sad to see the little dirt-grimed 
brats, trying to play in the noisy courts and 
muddy streets. Poor little uncared-for un- 
wanted human atoms, they are not children. 
Children are bright-eyed, chubby and shy. 
These are dingy, screeching elves, their tiny 
faces seared and withered, their baby laughter 
cracked and hoarse. 

The spring of life, and the spring of the year, 
were alike meant to be cradled in the green 
lap of Nature. To us, in the town, spring 
brings but its cold winds and drizzling rains. 
We must seek it amongst the leafless woods, 
and the brambly lanes, on the heathy moors, 
and the great still hills, if we want to feel its 
joyous breath, and hear its silent voices. 
There is a glorious freshness in the spring 
there. The scurrying clouds, the open bleak- 
ness, the rushing wind, and the clear bright 
air, thrill one with vague energies and hopes. 
Life, like the landscape around us, seems 
bigger, and wider, and freer — a rainbow road, 
leading to unknown ends. Through the silvery 
rents that bar the sky, we seem to catch a 
glimpse of the great hope and grandeur that 
lies around this little throbbing world, and a 
breath of its scent is wafted us on the wings 
of the wild March wind. 

Strange thoughts we do not understand are 
stirring in our hearts. Voices are calling us 
to some great effort, to some mighty work. 
But we do not comprehend their meaning yet, 
and the hidden echoes within us that would 
reply are struggling, inarticulate, and dumb. 



80 IDLE THOUGHTS OF AN IDLE FELLOW. 

We stretch our hands like children to the 
light, seeking to grasp we know not what. 
Our thoughts, like the boys' thoughts in the 
Danish song, are very long, long thoughts, and 
very vague ; we cannot see their end. 

It must be so. All thoughts that peer out- 
side this narrow world cannot be else than 
dim and shapeless. The thoughts that we can 
clearly grasp are very little thoughts — that 
two and two make four — that when we are 
hungry it is pleasant to eat — that honesty is 
the best policy ; all greater thoughts are unde- 
fined and vast to our poor childish brains. We 
see but dimly through the mists that roll 
around our time-girt isle of life, and only hear 
the distant surging of the great sea beyond. 



IDLE THOUGHTS OF AN IDLE FELLOW. 81 



ON CATS AND DOGS. 

What I've suffered from them this morning 
no tongue can tell. It began with Gustavus 
Adolphus. Gustavus Adolphus (they call 
him "Gusty," downstairs for short) is a very 
good sort of dog, when he is in the middle of 
a large field, or on a fairly extensive common, 
but I won't have him indoors. He means well, 
but this house is not his size. He stretches 
himself, and over go tv/o chairs and a what- 
not. He wags his tail, and the room looks as if 
a devastating army had marched through it. 
He breathes, and it puts the fire out. 

At dinner-time he creeps in under the table, 
lies there for a while, and then gets up sud- 
denly; the first intimation we have of his 
movements being given by the table, which 
appears animated by a desire to turn somer- 
saults. We all clutch at it frantically, and 
endeavor to maintain it in a horizontal posi- 
tion ; whereupon his struggles, he being under 
the impression that some wicked conspiracy 
is being hatched against him, become fearful, 
and the final picture presented is generally 
that of an overturned table and a smashed-up 
dinner, sandwiched between two sprawling 
layers of infuriated men and women. 

He came in this morning in his usual style, 

6 Idle Thoughts 



82 IDLE THOUGHTS OF AN IDLE FELLOW. 

which he appears to have founded on that of 
an American cyclone, and the first thing he 
did was to sweep my coffee-cup off the table 
with his tail, sending the contents full into 
the middle of my waistcoat. 

I rose from my chair, hurriedly, and remark- 
ing " , " approached him at a rapid rate. 

He preceded me in the direction of the door. 
At the door, he met Eliza, coming in with 
eggsr. Eliza observed, "Ugh!" and sat down 
on the floor, the eggs took up different posi- 
tions about the carpet, where they spread 
themselves out, and Gustavus Adolphus left 
the room. I called after him, strongly advis- 
ing him to go straight downstairs, and not let 
me see him again for the next hour or so; and 
he, seeming to agree with me, dodged the 
coal-scoop, and went; while I returned, dried 
myself, and finished breakfast. I made sure 
that he had gone into the yard, but when I 
looked into the passage ten minutes later, he 
was sitting at the top of the stairs. I ordered 
him down at once, but he only barked and 
jumped about, so I went to see what was the 
matter. 

It was Tittums. She was sitting on the top 
stair but one, and wouldn't let him pass. 

Tittums is our kitten. She is about the size 
of a penny roll. Her back was up, and she 
was swearing like a medical student. 

She does swear fearfully. I do a little that 
way myself sometimes, but I am a mere ama- 
teur compared with her. To tell you the truth 
— mind, this is strictly between ourselves, 



IDLE THOUGHTS OF AN IDLE FELLOW. 83 

please; I shouldn't like your wife to know I 
said it, the women don't understand these 
things; but between you and me, you know, I 
think it does a man good to swear. Swearing 
is the safety-valve through which the bad tem- 
per, that might otherwise do serious internal 
injury to his mental mechanism, escapes in 
harmless vaporing When a man has said, 
* 'Bless you, my dear, sweet sir. What the sun, 
moon, and stars made you so careless (if I may 
be permitted the expression) as to allow your 
light and delicate foot to descend upon my 
corn with so much force! Is it that you are 
physically incapable of comprehending the 
direction in which you are proceeding? you 
nice, clever young man — you!" or words to 
that effect, he feels better. Swearing has the 
same soothing effect upon our angry passions 
that smashing the furniture or slamming the 
doors is so well known to exercise; added to 
which it is much cheaper. Swearing clears a 
man out like a pen'orth of gunpowder does to 
the wash-house chimney. An occasional ex- 
plosion is good for both. I rather distrust a 
man who never swears, or savagely kicks the 
footstool, or pokes the fire with unnecessary 
violence. Without some outlet, the anger 
caused by the ever-occurring troubles of life is 
apt to rankle and fester within. The petty 
annoyance, instead of being thrown from us, 
sits down beside us, and becomes a sorrow, 
and the little offence is brooded over till, in 
the hot-bed of rumination, it grows into a 



84 IDLE THOUGHTS OF AN IDLE FELLOW. 

great injury, under whose poisonous shadow 
springs up hatred and revenge. 

Swearing relieves the feelings, that is what 
swearing does. I explained this to my aunt 
on one occasion, but it didn't answer with her. 
She said I had no business to have such feel- 
ings. 

That is what I told Tittums. I told her she 
ought to be ashamed of herself, brought up in 
a Christian family as she was, too. I don't so 
much mind hearing an old cat swear, but I 
can't bear to see a mere kitten give way to it. 
It seems sad in one so young. 

i put Tittums in my pocket, and returned to 
my desk. I forgot her for the moment, and 
when I looked I found that she had squirmed 
out of my pocket on to the table, and was try- 
ing to swallow the. pen; then she put her leg 
into the ink-pot and upset it; then she licked 
her leg; then she swore again — at me this 
time. 

I put her down on the floor, and there Tim 
began rowing with her. I do wish Tim would 
mind his own business. It was no concern of 
his what she had been doing. Besides, he is 
not a saint himself. He is only a two-year-old 
fox terrier, and he interferes with everything, 
and gives himself the airs of a gray-headed 
Scotch collie. 

Tittums' mother has come in, and Tim has 
got his nose scratched, for which I am re- 
markably glad. I have put them all three out 
in the passage, where they are fighting at the 
present moment. I'm in a mess with the ink, 



IDLE THOUGHTS OF AN IDLE FELLOW. 85 

and in a thundering bad temper; and if any- 
thing more in the cat or dog line comes fooling 
about me this morning, it had better bring its 
own funeral contractor with it. 

Yet, in general, I like cats and dogs very 
much, indeed. What jolly chaps they are! 
They are much superior to human beings as 
companions. They do not quarrel or argue 
with you. They never talk about themselves, 
but listen to you while you talk about yourself, 
and keep up an appearance of being interested 
in the conversation. They never make stupid 
remarks. They never observe to Miss Brown 
across a dinner- table, that they always under- 
stood she was very sweet on Mr. Jones (who 
has just married Miss Robinson). They never 
mistake your wife's cousin for her husband, 
and fancy that you are the father-in-law. And 
they never ask a young author with fourteen 
tragedies, sixteen comedies, seven farces, and 
a couple of burlesques in his desk, why he 
doesn't write a play. 

They never say unkind things. They never 
tell us of our faults, ''merely for our own good. " 
They do not, at inconvenient moments mildly 
remind us of our past follies and mistakes. 
They do not say, "Oh, yes, a lot of use you 
are, if you are ever really wanted" — sarcastic 
like. They never inform us, like our inamor- 
atas sometimes do, that we are not nearly so 
nice as we used to be. We are always the same 
to them. 

They are always glad to see us. They are 
with us in all our humors. They are merry 



86 IDLE THOUGHTS OF AN IDLE FELLOW. 

when we are glad, sober when we feel solemn, 
and sad when we are sorrowful. 

"HuUoa! happy, and want a lark! Right 
you are; I'm your man. Here I am frisking 
round you, leaping, barking, pirouetting, ready 
for any amount of fun and mischief. Look at 
my eyes if you doubt me. What shall it be? 
A romp in the drawing-room, and never mind 
the furniture, or a scamper in the fresh, cool 
air, a scud across the fields, and down the hill, 
and we won't let old Gaffer Goggles' geese 
know vrhat time o' day it is, neither. Whoop! 
come along." 

Or you'd like to be quiet and think. Very 
well. Pussy can sit on the arm of the chair 
and purr, and Montmorency will curl himself 
up on the rug, and blink at the fire, yet keep- 
ing one eye on you the while, in case you are 
seized with any sudden desire in the direction 
of rats. 

And when we bury our face in our hands 
and wish we had never been born, they don't 
sit up very straight, and observe that we have 
brought it all upon ourselves. They don't 
even hope it will be a warning to us. But 
they come up softly; and shove their heads 
against us. If it is a cat, she stands on yonr 
shoulder, rumples your hair, and says, '*Lor', 
I am sorry for you old man," as plain as words 
can speak ; and if it is a dog, he looks up at 
you with his big, true eyes, and says with them, 
**Well, you've always got me, you know. We'll 
go through the world together, and always 
stand by each other, won't we?" 



IDLE THOUGHTS OF AN IDLE FELLOW. 87 

He is very imprudent, a dog is. He never 
makes it his business to inquire whether you 
are in the right or in the wrong, never bothers 
as to whether you are going tip or down upon 
life's ladder, never asks whether you are rich 
or poor, silly or wise, sinner or saint. You are 
his pal. That is enough for him, and, come 
luck or misfortune, good repute or bad, honor 
or shame, he is going to stick to you, to com- 
fort you, guard you and give his life for you, 
if need be — foolish, brainless, soulless dog! 

Ah ! old staunch friend, with your deep, clear 
eyes, and bright, quick glances, that take in 
all one has to say before one has time to speak 
it, do you know you are only an animal, and 
have no mind? Do you know that that dull- 
eyed, gin-sodden lout, leaning against the post 
out there, is immeasurably your intellectual 
superior? Do you know that every little- 
minded, selfish scoundrel, who lives by cheat- 
ing and tricking, who never did a gentle deed, 
or said a kind word, who never had a thought 
that was not mean and low, or a desire that 
was not base, whose every action is a fraud, 
whose every utterance is a lie; do you know 
that these crawling skulks (and there are mil- 
lions of them in the world), do you know they 
are all as much superior to you as the sun is 
superior to rushlight, you honorable, brave- 
hearted, unselfish brute? They are men, you 
know, and men are the greatest, and noblest, 
and wisest, and best Beings in the whole vast 
eternal Universe. Any man will tell you that. 

Yes, poor doggie, you are very stupid, very 



88 IDLE THOUGHTS OF AN IDLE FELLOW. 

Stupid indeed, compared with us clever men, 
who understand all about politics and philos- 
ophy, and who know everything, in short, ex- 
cept what we are, and where we came from, 
and whither we are going, and what every- 
thing outside this tiny w^orld and most things 
in it are. 

Never mind, though, pussy and doggy, we 
like you both, all the better for your being 
stupid. We all like stupid things. j\Ien can't 
bear clever women, and a woman's ideal man 
is some one she can call a ''dear old stupid." 
It is so pleasant to come across people more 
stupid than ourselves. We love them at once 
for being so. The world must be rather a 
rough place for clever people. Ordinar}^ folk 
dislike them, and as for themselves they hate 
each other most cordially. 

But there, the clever people are such a very 
insignificant minority that it really doesn't 
much matter if they are unhappy. So long as 
the foolish people can be made comfortable, 
the world, as a whole, will get on tolerably 
well. 

Cats have the credit of being more worldly 
wise than dogs — of looking more after their 
own interests, and being less blindly devoted 
to those of their friends. And we men and 
women are naturally shocked at such selfish- 
ness. Cats certainly do love a family that has 
a carpet in the kitchen more than a family 
that has not; and if there are many children 
about, they prefer to spend their leisure time 
next door. But, taken altogether, cats are 



IDLE THOUGHTS OF AN IDLE FELLOW. 89 

libeled. Make a friend of one, and she will 
stick to you through thick and thin. All the 
cats that I have had have been most firm com- 
rades. I had a cat once that used to follow me 
about everywhere, until it even got quite em- 
barrassing, and I had to beg her, as a personal 
favor, not to accompany me any further down 
the High Street. She used to sit up for me 
when I was late home, and meet me in the 
passage. It made me feel quite like a married 
man, except that she never asked where I had 
been, and then didn't believe me when I told 
her. 

Another cat I had used to get drunk regu- 
larly every day. She would hang about for 
hours outside the cellar door for the purpose 
of sneaking in on the first opportunity, and 
lapping up the drippings from the beer cask. 
I do not mention this habit of hers in praise 
of the species, but merely to show how almost 
human some of them are. If the transmigra- 
tion of souls is a fact, this animal was cer- 
tainly qualifying most rapidly for a Christian. 
For her vanity was only second to her love of 
drink. Whenever she caught a particularly 
big rat, she would bring it up into the room 
where we were all sitting, lay the corpse down 
in the midst of us, and wait to be praised. 
Lord! how the girls used to scream. 

Poor rats! They seem only to exist so that 
cats and dogs may gain credit for killing 
them, and chemists make a fortune by invent- 
ing specialties in poison for their destruction. 
And yet there is something fascinating about 



90 IDLE THOUGHTS OF AN IDLE FELLOW. 

them. There is a weirdness and uncanniness 
attaching to Lhem. They are so cunning and 
strong, so terrible in their numbers, so cruel, 
so secret. They swarm in deserted houses, 
where the broken casements hang rotting to 
the crumbling walls, and the doors swing 
creaking on their rusty hinges. They know 
the sinking ship, and leave her, no one knows 
how or whither. They whisper to each other 
in their hiding-places, how a doom will fall 
upon the hall, and the great name die forgot- 
ten. They do fearful deeds in ghastly charnel- 
houses. 

No tale of horror is complete without the 
rats. In stories of ghosts and murderers, they 
scamper through the echoing rooms, and the 
gnawing of their teeth is heard behind the 
wainscot, and their gleaming eyes peer 
through the holes in the worm-eaten tapestry, 
and they scream in shrill, unearthly notes in 
the dead of night, while the moaning wind 
sweeps, sobbing, round the ruined turret tow- 
ers, and passes wailing like a woman through 
the chambers bare and tenantless. 

And dying prisoners, in their loathsome dun- 
geons, see, through the horrid gloom, their 
small red eyes, like glittering coals, hear, in 
the death-like silence, the rush of their claw- 
like feet, and start up shrieking in the dark- 
ness, and watch through the awful night. 

I love to read tales about rats. They make 
my flesh creep so. I like that tale of Bishop 
Hatto and the rats. The wicked Bishop, you 
know, had ever so much corn, stored in his 



IDLE THOUGHTS OF AN IDLE FELLOW. 91 

granaries, and would not let the starving" 
people touch it, but, when they prayed to him 
for food, gathered them together in his barn, 
and then shutting the doors on them, set fire 
to the place and burned them all to death. 
But next day there came thousands upon thou- 
sands of rats, sent to do judgment on him. 
Then Bishop Hatto fled to his strong tower 
that stood in the middle of the Rhine, and 
barred himself in, and fancied he was safe. 
But the rats! they swam the river, they 
gnawed their way through the thick stone 
walls, and ate him alive where he sat. 

"They had whetted their teeth against the stones, 
And now they picked the Bishop's bones; 
They gnawed the flesh from every limb, 
For they were sent to do judgment on him." 

Oh, it's a lovely tale. 

Then there is the story of the Pied Piper of 
Hamelin, how first he piped the rats away, 
and, afterwards, when the Mayor broke faith 
with him, drew all the children along with 
him, and went into the mountain. What a 
curious old legend that is! I wonder what it 
means, or has it any meaning at all? There 
seems something strange and deep lying hid 
beneath the rippling rhyme. It haunts me, 
that picture of the quaint, mysterious old 
piper, piping through Hamelin 's narrow 
streets, and the children following with danc- 
ing feet and thoughtful, eager faces. The old 
folks try to stay them, but the children pay 
no heed. They hear the weird, witched music. 



92 IDLETHOUGHTSOF AN IDLE FELLOW 

and must follow. The games are left unfin- 
ished, and the playthings drop from their care- 
less hands. They know not whither they are 
hastening. The mystic music calls to them, 
and they follow, heedless and unasking where. 
It stirs and vibrates in their hearts, and other 
sounds grow faint. So they wander through 
Pied Piper street away from Hamelin town. 

I get thinking, sometimes, if the Pied Piper 
is really dead, or if he may not still be roam- 
ing up and down our streets and lanes, but 
playing now so softly that only the children 
hear him. Why do the little faces look so 
grave and solemn when the57- pause awhile 
from romping, and stand, deep wrapt, with 
straining eyes? They only shake their curly 
heads, and dart back, laughing, to their play- 
mates when we question them. But I fancy 
myself they have been listening to the magic 
music of the old Pied Piper, and perhaps, with 
those bright eyes of theirs, have even seen his 
odd, fantastic figure, gliding unnoticed 
through the whirl and throng. 

Even we grown-up children hear his piping 
now and then. But the yearning notes are 
very far away, and the noisy, blustering world 
is always bellowing so loud, it drowns the 
dream-like melody. One day the sweet, sad 
strains will sound out full and clear, and then 
we too shall, like the little children, throw our 
playthings all aside, and follow. The loving 
hands will be stretched out to stay us, and the 
voices we have learnt to listen for will cry to 
us to stop. But we shall push the fond arms 



IDLE THOUGHTS OF AN IDLE FELLOV/. 93 

gently back and pass out through the sorrov/- 
ing house and through the open door. For 
the wild, strange music will be ringing in our 
hearts, and we shall know the meaning of its 
song by then. 

I wish people could love animals without 
getting maudlin over them, as so many do. 
Women are the most hardened offenders in 
such respects, but even our intellectual sex 
often degrade pets into nuisances by absurd 
idolatry. There are the gushing young ladies 
who, having read "David Copperfield," have 
thereupon sought out a small, long-haired dog 
of nondescript breed, possessed of an irritat- 
ing habit of criticising a man's trousers, and 
of finally commenting upon the same by a 
sniff, indicative of contempt and disgust. 
They talk sweet girlish prattle to this animal 
(when there is any one near enough to over- 
hear them), and they kiss its nose, and put its 
unwashed head up against their cheek in a 
most touching manner; though I have noticed 
that these caresses are principally performed 
when there are young men hanging about. 

Then there are the old ladies who worship a 
fat poodle, scant of breath, and full of fleas. 
I knew a couple of elderly spinsters once who 
had a sort of German sausage on legs, which 
they called a dog, between them. They used 
to wash its face with warm water every morn- 
ing. It had a mutton cutlet regularly for 
breakfast; and on Sundays, when one of the 
ladies went to church, the other always stopped 
at home to keep the dog company. 



94 IDLE THOUGHTS OF AM IDLE FELLOW. 

There are many families where tlie whole in- 
terest of life is centered upon the dog-. Cats, 
by the way, rarely suffer from excess of adula- 
tion. A cat possesses a very fair sense of the 
ridiculous, and will put her paw down kindly, 
but firmly, upon any nonsense of this kind. 
Dogs, however, seem to like it. They en- 
courage their owners in the tomfoolery, and 
the consequence is, that in the circles I am 
speaking of, what "dear Fido" has done, does 
do, won't do, will do, can do, can't do, was 
doing, is doing, is going to do, shall do, shan't 
do, and is about to be going to have done, is 
the continual theme of discussion from morn- 
ing till night. 

All the conversation, consisting, as it does, 
of the very dregs of imbecility, is addressed 
to this confounded animal. The family sit in 
a row all day long, watching him, commenting 
upon his actions, telling each other anecdotes 
about him, recalling his virtues, and remem- 
bering with tears how one day they lost him 
for two whole hours, on which occasion he was 
brought home in a most brutal manner by the 
butcher boy, who had been met carrying him 
by the scruff of his neck with one hand, while 
soundly cuffing his head with the other. 

After recovering from these bitter recollec- 
tions, they vie with each other in bursts of 
admiration for the brute, until some more than 
usually enthusiastic member, unable any 
longer to control his feelings, swoops down 
upon the unhappy quadruped in a frenzy of 
affection, clutches it to his heart, and slobbers 



IDLE THOUGHTS OF AN IDLE FELLOW. 95 

over it. Whereupon, the others, mad with 
envy, rise up, and seizing as much of the dog 
as greed of the first one has left to them, mur- 
mur praise and devotion. 

Among these people, everything is done 
through the dog. If you want to make love 
to the eldest daughter, or get the old man to 
lend you the garden roller, or the mother to 
subscribe to the Society for the Suppression of 
Solo-cornet Players in Theatrical Orchestras 
(it's a pity there isn't one, anyhow), you 
have to begin with the dog. You must gain 
its approbation before they will even listen to 
you, and if, as is highly probable, the animal, 
whose frank, doggy nature has been warped 
by the unnatural treatment he has received, 
responds to your overtures of friendship by 
viciously snapping at you, your cause is lost 
forever. 

"If Fido won't take to any one," the father 
has thoughtfully remarked beforehand, "I say 
that man is not to be trusted. You know, 
Maria, how often I have said that. Ah! he 
knows, bless him. " 

Drat him ! 

And to think that the surly brute was once 
an innocent puppy, all legs and head, full of 
fun and play, and burning with ambition to 
become a big, good dog, and bark like mother. 

Ah me! life sadly changes us all. The 
world seems a vast, horrible grinding machine, 
into which what is fresh and bright and pure 
is pushed at one end, to come out old and 
crabbed and wrinkled at the other. 



96 IDLE THOUGHTS OF AN IDLE FELLOW. 

Look even at Pussy Sobersides, with her 
dull, sleepy glance, her grave slow walk, and 
dignified, prudish airs; who could ever think 
that once she was the blue-eyed, v/hirling, 
scampering, head-over-heels, mad little fire- 
work that we call a kitten. 

What marvelous vitality a kitten has! It is 
really something very beautiful the way life 
bubbles over in the little creatures. They rush 
about, and mew, and spring; dance on their 
hind legs, embrace everything with their front 
ones, roll over and over and over, lie on their 
backs and kick. They don't know what to do 
with themselves, they are so full of life. 

Can you remember, reader, when you and I 
felt something of the same sort of thing? Can 
you remember those glorious days of fresh 
young manhood; how, when coming home 
along the moonlit road, we felt too full of life 
for sober walking, and had to spring and skip, 
and wave our arms, and shout, till belated 
farmers' w4ves thought — and w4th good rea- 
son, too — that we were mad, and kept close to 
the hedge, while we stood and laughed aloud 
to see them scuttle off so fast, and made their 
blood run cold with a wild parting whoop ; and 
the tears came, we knew" not why. Oh, that 
magnificent young Life! that crowned us kings 
of the earth ; that rushed through ever}^ ting- 
ling vein, till we seemed to walk on air; that 
thrilled through our throbbing brains, and told 
us to go forth and conquer the whole world ; 
that welled up in our young hearts, till we 
longed to stretch out our arms and gather all 



IDLE THOUGHTS OF AN IDLE FELLOW. 97 

the toiling men and women and the little chil- 
dren to our breast, and love them all — all. 
Ah! they were grand days, those deep, full 
days, when our coming life, like an unseen 
organ, peeled strange, yearnful music in our 
ears, and our young blood cried out like a war- 
horse for the battle. Ah, our pulse beats slow 
and steady now, and our old joints are rheu- 
matic, and we love our easy-chair and pipe, 
and sneer at boys' enthusiasm. But, oh ! for 
one brief moment of that god-like life again. 



7 Idle Thoughts 



IDLE THOUGHTS OF AN IDLE FELLOW. 



ON BEING SHY. 

All great literary men are shy. 1 am myself, 
though I am told it is hardly noticeable. 

I am glad it is not. It used to be extremely 
prominent at one time, and was the cause of 
much misery to myself, and discomfort to 
every one about me — my lady friends, espe- 
cially, complained most bitterly about it. 

A shy man's lot is not a happy one. The 
men dislike him, the women despise him, and 
he dislikes and despises himself. Use brings 
him no relief, and there is no cure for him 
except time; though I once came across a 
delicious receipt for overcoming the misfortune. 

It appeared among the "answers to corres- 
pondents" in a small, weekly journal, and ran 
as follows — I have never forgotten it: "Adopt 
an easy and pleasing manner, especially toward 
ladies. " 

Poor wretch! I can imagine the grin with 
which he must have read that advice. "Adopt 
an easy and pleasing manner, especially toward 
ladies, " forsooth ! Don't you adopt anything 
of the kind, my dear young shy friend. 
Your attempt to put on any other disposition 
than your own will infallibly result in yonr 
becoming ridiculously gushing and offensively 



IDLE THOUGHTS OF AN IDLE FELLOW. 99 

familiar. Be your own natural self, and then 
you will only be thought to be surly and stupid. 

The shy man does have some slight revenge 
upon society for the torture it inflicts upon 
him. He is able, to a certain extent, to com- 
municate his misery. He frightens other 
people as much as they frighten him. He acts 
like a damper upon the whole room, and the 
most jovial spirits become, in his presence, 
depressed and nervous. 

This is a good deal brought about by misun- 
derstanding. Many people mistake the shy 
man's timidity for overbearing arrogance, and 
are awed and insulted by it. His awkward- 
ness is resented as insolent carelessness, and 
when, terror-stricken, at the first word ad- 
dressed to him, the blood rushes to his head, 
and the power of speech completely fails him, 
he is regarded as an awful example of the evil 
effects of giving way to passion. 

But, indeed, to be misunderstood is the shy 
man's fate on every occasion; and, whatever 
impression "he endeavors to create, he is sure 
to convey its opposite. When he makes a joke, 
it is looked upon as a pretended relation of 
fact, and his want of veracity much con- 
demned. His sarcasm is accepted as his literal 
opinion, and gains for him the reputation of 
being an ass; while if, on the other hand, wish- 
ing to ingratiate himself, he ventures upon a 
little bit of flattery, it is taken for satire, and 
he is hated ever afterwards. 

These, and the rest of a shy man's troubles, 
are always very amusing, to other people; and 



100 IDLE THOUGHTS OF AN IDLE FELLOW. 

have afforded material for comic writing from 
time immemorial. But if we look a little 
deeper, we shall find there is a pathetic, one 
might almost say a tragic, side to the picture. 
A shy man means a lonely man — a man cut off 
from all companionship, all sociability. He 
moves about the world, but does not mix with 
it. Between him and his fellow-men there 
runs ever an impassable barrier — a strong, 
invisible wall, that trying in vain to scale, he 
but bruises himself against. He sees the 
pleasant faces and hears the pleasant voices on 
the other side, but he cannot stretch his hand 
across to grasp another hand. He stands 
watching the merry groups, and he longs to 
speak, and to claim kindred with them. But 
they pass him by, chatting gaily to one another, 
and' he cannot stay them. He tries to reach 
them, but his prison walls move with him, 
and hem him in on every side. In the busy 
street, in the crowded room, in the grind of 
work, in the whirl of pleasure, amidst the 
man)^ or amidst the few; wherever men 
congregate together, wherever the music of 
human speech is heard, and human thought is 
flashed from human eyes, there, shunned and 
solitary, the shy man, like a leper, stands apart. 
His soul is full of love and longing, but the 
world knows it not. The iron mask of shy- 
ness is riveted before his face, and the man 
beneath is never seen. Genial words and 
hearty greetings are ever rising to his lips, 
but they die away in unheard whispers behind 
the steel clamps. His heart aches for the 



IDLE THOUGHTS OF AN IDLE FELLOW. 101 

weary brother, but his sympathy is dumb. 
Contempt and indignation against wrong choke 
up his throat, and, finding no safety-valve, 
when in passionate utterance they may burst 
forth, they only turn in again and harm him. 
All the hate, and scorn, and love of a deep 
nature, such as the shy man is ever cursed by, 
fester and corrupt within, instead of spending 
themselves abroad, and sour him into a mis- 
anthrope and cynic. 

Yes, shy men, like ugly women, have a bad 
time of it in this world, to go through which, 
with an}^ comfort, needs the hide of a rhino- 
cerous. Thick skin is, indeed, our moral 
clothes, and without it we are not fit to be seen 
about in civilized society. A poor gasping, 
blushing creature, with trembling knees and 
twitching hands, is a painful sight to every 
one, and if it cannot cure itself, the sooner it 
goes and hangs itself the better. 

The disease can be cured. For the comfort 
of the shy, I can assure them of that from per- 
sonal experience. I do not like speaking 
about myself, as may have been noticed, but in 
the cause of humanity, I, on this occasion, will 
do so, and will confess that at one time I was, 
as the young man in the Bab Ballad says, "the 
shyest of the shy," and "whenever I was intro- 
duced to any pretty maid, my knees they 
knocked together, just as if I was afraid." 
Now, I would — nay, have — on this very day 
before yesterday I did the deed. Alone and 
entirely by myself (as the school-boy said in 
translating the Ballum Gallicum), did I beard 



102 IDLE THOUGHTS OF AN IDLE FELLOW. 

a railway refreshment-room }oung lady in her 
own lair. 1 rebuked her, in terms of mingled 
bitterness and sorrow, for her callousness and 
want of condescension. I insisted, courteously 
but firmly, on being accorded that deference 
and attention that was the right of the travel- 
ing Briton; and, in the end, I looked her full 
in the face. Need I say more? 

True, that immediately after doing so, I left 
the room, with what may possibly have 
appeared to be precipitation, and without wait- 
ing for any refreshment. But that was because 
I had changed my mind, and not because I 
was frightened, you understand. 

One consolation that shy folk can take unto 
themselves is that shyness is certainly no sign 
of stupidity. It is easy enough for bull-headed 
clowns to sneer at nerves, but the highest 
natures are not necessarily those containing 
the greatest amount of moral brass. The 
horse is not an inferior animal to the cock-spar- 
row, nor the deer of the forest to the pig. 
Shjmess simply means extreme sensibility, and 
has nothing whatver to do with self-conscious- 
ness, or with conceit, though its relationship 
to both is continually insisted upon by the poll- 
parrot school of philosophy. 

Conceit, indeed, is the quickest cure for it. 
When it once begins to draw upon you that you 
are a good deal cleverer than any one else in 
this world, bashfulness becomes shocked, and 
leaves you. When you can look around a 
roomful of people, and think that each one is a 
mere child in intellect compared with yourself, 



IDLE THOUGHTS OF AN IDLE FELLOW. 103 

you feel no more shy of them than you would 
of a select company of magpies or orang- 
outangs. 

Conceit is the finest armor that a man can 
wear. Upon its smooth, impenetrable surface 
the puny dagger-thrusts of spite and envy 
glance harmlessly aside. Without that breast- 
plate, the sword of talent cannot force its way 
through the battle of life, for blows have to be 
borne as well as dealt. I do not, of course, 
speak of the conceit that displays itself in an 
elevated nose and a falsetto voiae. That is not 
real conceit; that is only playing at being con- 
ceited, like children play at being kings and 
queens, and go strutting about with feathers 
and long trains. Genuine conceit does not 
make a man objectionable. On the contrary, 
it tends to make him genial, kind-hearted, and 
simple. He has no need of affectation ; he is far 
too well satisfied with his own character; and 
his pride is too deep-seated to appear at all on 
the outside. Careless like of praise or blame, 
he can afford to be truthful. Too far, in fancy, 
above the rest of mankind to trouble about 
their petty distinctions, hence equally at home 
with duke or costermonger, and, valuing no 
one's standard but his own, he is never 
tempted to practice that miserable pretence 
that less self-reliant people offer up as an 
hourly sacrifice to the god of their neighbor's 
opinion. 

The shy man, on the other hand, is humble 
— modest of his own judgment, and over-anx- 
icus concerning that of others. But this, in 



104 IDLE THOUGHTS OF AN IDLE FELLOW. 

the case of a young man, is surely right 
enough. His character is unformed. It is 
slowly evolving itself out of a chaos of doubt 
and disbelief. Before the growing insight 
and experience the diffidence recedes. A man 
rarely carries his shyness past the hobbledehoy 
period. Even if his own inward strength does 
not throw it off, the rubbings of the world 
generally smooth it down. You scarcely ever 
meet a really shy man — except in novels or on 
the stage, where, by-the-by, he is much 
admired, especially by the women. 

There, in that supernatural land, he appears 
as a fair-haired and saint-like young man — fair 
hair and goodness always go together on the 
stage. No respectable audience would believe 
in one without the other. I knew an actor 
who mislaid his wig once, and had to rush on 
to play the hero in his own hair, which was jet 
black, and the gallery howled at all his noble 
sentiments under the impression that he was 
the villain. He — the shy young man — loves 
the heroine, oh so devotedly (but only in 
asides, for he dare not tell her of it), and he is 
so noble and unselfish, and speaks in such a 
low voice, and is so good to his mother; and 
the bad people in the play, they laugh at him, 
and jeer at him, but he takes it all so gently, 
and, in the end, it transpires that he is such a 
clever man, though nobody knew it, and then 
the heroine tells him she loves him, and he is 
so surprised, and oh, so happy! and everybody 
loves him, and asks him to forgive them, 
which he does in a few well-chosen and sarcas- 



IDLE THOUGHTS OF AN IDLE FELLOW. 105 

tic words, and blesses them; and he seems to 
have generally such a good time of it that all 
the young fellows who are not shy long to be 
shy. But the really shy man knows better. 
He knows that it is not quite so pleasant in 
reality. He is not quite so interesting there 
as in fiction. He is a little more clumsy and 
stupid, and a little less devoted and gentle, 
and his hair is much darker, which, taken 
altogether, considerably alters the aspect of the 
case. 

The point where he does resemble his ideal 
is in his faithfulness. I am fully prepared to 
allow the shy young man that virtue: he is 
constant in his love. But the reason is not far 
to seek. The fact is, it exhausts all his stock of 
courage to look one woman in the face, and it 
would be simply impossible for him to go 
through the ordeal with a second. He stands 
in far too much dread of the whole female sex 
to want to go gadding about with many of 
them. One is quite enough for him. 

Now, it is different with the young man who 
is not shy. He has temptations which his bash- 
ful brother never encounters. He looks 
around, and everjrwhere sees roguish eyes and 
laughing lips. What more natural than that 
amidst so many roguish eyes and laughing lips 
he should become confused, and, forgetting for 
the moment which particular pair of roguish 
eyes and laughing lips it is that he belongs to, 
go off making love to the wrong set. The shy 
man, who never looks at anything but his own 



106 IDLE THOUGHTS OF AX IDLE FELLOW. 

boots, sees not, and is not tempted. Happy 
shy man ! 

Not but what the shy man himself would 
much rather not be happy in that way. He 
lonf^s to ''go it" with the others, and curses 
himself every day for not being able to. He 
will, now and again, screwing up his courage 
by a tremendous effort, plunge into roguish- 
ness. But it is always a terrible fiasco, and 
after one or two feeble flounders he crawls out 
again, limp and pitiable. 

I say "pitiable," though I am afraid he 
never is pitied. There are certain misfortunes 
which, while inflicting a vast amount of suffer- 
ing upon their victims, gain for them no sym- 
pathy. Losing an umbrella, falling in love, 
toothache, black eyes, and having your hat sat 
upon, may be m.entioned as a few examples, 
but the chief of them, all is shyness. The shy 
man is regarded as an animate joke. His tor- 
tures are the sport of the drawing-room arena, 
and are pointed out and discussed with mucli 
gusto. 

"Look," cry his tittering audience to each 
other, "he's blushing!" 

"Just watch his legs," says one. 

"Do you notice how he is sitting?" adds 
another; "right on the edge of the chair." 

"Seems to have plenty of color, " sneers a 
military-looking gentleman. 

"Pity he's got so many hands," murmurs an 
elderly lady, with her own calmly folded on 
her lap. "They quite confuse him. " 

"A yard or two off his feet wouldn't be a 



IDLK THOUGHTS OF AN IDLE FELLOW. 107 

disadvantaf^e, " chimes in the comic man, 
''especially as he seems so anxious to hide 
them. " 

And then another suggests that with such a 
voice he ought to have been a sea captain. 
Some dravvT attention to the desperate way in 
which he is grasping his hat. Some comment 
upon his limited powers of conversation. 
Others remark upon the troublesome nature 
of his cough. And so on, until his peculiarities 
and the com^pan}^ are both thoroughly ex- 
hausted. 

His friends and relations make matters still 
more unpleasant for the poor boy (friends and 
relations are privileged to be m.ore disagreeable 
than other people). Not content with making 
fun of him amongst themselves, they insist on 
his seeing the joke. They mimic and carica- 
ture him for his own edification. One, pre- 
tending to imitate him, goes outside, and 
comes in again in a ludicrously nervous man- 
ner, explaining to him afterward that that is 
the way he — meaning the shy fellow — walks 
into a room; or, turning to him with "This is 
the way you shake hands," proceeds to go 
through a comic pantomime with the rest of 
the room, taking hold of everr one's hand as if 
it were a hot plate, and flabbily dropping it 
again. And then they ask him why he blushes, 
and why he stammers, and why he always 
speaks in an almost inaudible tone, as if the}^ 
thought he did it on purpose. Then one of 
them, sticking out his chest, and strutting 
about the room like a pouter-pigeon, suggests 



108 IDLE THOUGHTS OF AN IDLE FELLOW. 

quite seriously that that is the style he should 
adopt. The old man slaps him on the back, 
and says, "Be bold, my boy. Don't be afraid of 
any one." The mother says, ''Never do any- 
thing that you need to be ashamed of, Alger- 
non, and then you never need be ashamed of 
anything you do," and, beaming mildly at him, 
seems surprised at the clearness of her own 
logic. The boys tell him that he's "worse than 
a girl," and the girls repudiate the implied 
slur upon their sex by indignantly exclaiming 
that they are sure no girl would be half so bad. 

They are quite right; no girl would be. 
There is no such thing as a shy woman, or, at 
all events, I have never come across one, and, 
imtil I do, I shall not believe in them. I know 
that the generally accepted belief is quite the 
reverse. All women are supposed to be like 
timid, startled fawns, blushing and casting 
down their gentle eyes when looked at, and 
running away when spoken to; while we men 
are supposed to be a bold and roUicky lot, and 
the poor, dear little women admire us for it, 
but are terribly afraid of us. It is a pretty 
theory, but, like most generally accepted the- 
ories, mere nonsense. The girl of twelve is 
self-contained, and as cool as the proverbial 
cucumber, while her brother of twenty stam- 
mers and stutters by her sidel A woman will 
enter a concert-room late, interrupt the per- 
formance, and disturb the whole audience 
without moving a hair, while her husband fol- 
lows her, a crushed heap of apologizing misery. 

The superior nerve of women in all mat- 



IDLE THOUGHTS OF AN IDLE FELLOW. 109 

ters connected with love, from the casting of 
the first sheep's eye down to the end of the 
honeymoon, is too well acknowledged to need 
comment. Nor is the example a fair one to 
cite in the present instance, the positions not 
being equally balanced. Love is woman's 
business, and in "business" we all lay aside 
our natural weaknesses — the shyest man I 
ever knew was a photographic tout. 



110 IDLE THOUGHTS OF AN IDLE FELLOW. 



OISl BABIES. 

Oh, yes, I do — I know a lot about 'em. I 
was one myself once — though not long, not so 
long as my clothes. They were very long, I 
recollect, and always in my way when I wanted 
to kick. Why do babies have such yards of 
unnecessary clothing? It is not a riddle. I 
really want to know. I never could under- 
stand it. Is it that the parents are ashamed 
of the size of the child, and wish to make 
believe that it is longer than it actually is? I 
asked a nurse once why it was. She said: 

"Lor', sir, they always have long clothes, 
bless their little hearts. " 

And when I explained that her answer, 
although doing credit to her feelings, hardly 
disposed of my difficulty, she replied: 

"Lor', sir, j^ou would wouldn't have 'em in 
short clothes, poor little dears?" And she said 
it in a tone that seemed to imply I had sug- 
gested some unmanly outrage. 

Since then, I have felt shy at making in- 
quiries on the subject, and the reason — if 
reason there be — is still a mystery to me. 
But, indeed, putting them in any clothes at 
all seems absurd to my mind. Goodness knows, 
there is enough of dressing and undressing to 
be gone through in life, without beginning it 




I had a cat once that used to follow me."— Page 89. 

Idle Thoughts of an Idle Fellow. 



IDLE THOUGHTS OF AN IDLE FELLOV/. 

before we need; and one would thini tl .'■ 
people who live in bed might, at all even 
be spared the torture. Why wake the p( . 
little wretches up in the morning to take one 
lot of clothes off, fix another lot on, and put 
them to bed again; and then, at night, haul 
them out once more, merely to change every- 
thing back? And when all is done, what differ- 
ence is there I should like to know, between a 
baby's night-shirt! and the thing it wears in 
the day-time? 

Very likely, however, I am only making my- 
self ridiculous — I often do ; so I am informed — 
and I will, therefore, say no more upon this 
matter of clothes, except only that it would be 
of great convenience if some fashion were 
adopted, enabling you to tell a boy from a 
girl. 

At present it is most awkward. Neither 
hair, dress, nor conversation affords the 
slightest clue, and you are left to guess. By 
some mysterious law of Nature, you invariably 
guess wrong, and are thereupon regarded by 
all relatives and friends as a mixture of fool 
and knave, the enormity of alluding to a 
male babe as "she" being only equaled by the 
atrocity of referring to a female infant as "he." 
Whichever sex the particular child in question 
happens not to belong to is considered as 
beneath contempt, and any mention of it is 
taken as a personal insult to the family. 

And, as you value your fair name, do not at- 
tempt to get out of the difficulty by talking of 
"it." There are various methods by which 



il2 IDLE THOUGHTS OF AN IDLE FELLOW. 

you may achieve ignominy and shame. By 
murdering a large and respectable family in 
cold blood, and afterwards depositing their 
bodies in the water company's reservoir, you 
will gain much unpopularity in the neighbor- 
hood of your crime, and even robbing a church 
will get you cordially disliked, especially by 
the vicar. But if you desire to drain to the 
dregs the fullest cup of scorn and hatred that 
a fellow human creature can pour out for you, 
let a voung mother hear you call dear baby 
*'it." ' 

Your best plan is to address the article as 
"little angel. " The noun "angel," being of 
common gender, suits the case admirably, and 
the epithet is sure of being favorably 
received. "Pet" or "beauty" are useful for 
variety's sake, but "angel" is the term that 
brings you the greatest credit for sense and 
good feeling. The word should be preceded 
"by a short giggle and accompanied by as much 
smile as possible. And, whatever you do, 
don't forget to say that the child has got its 
father's nose. This "fetches" the parents (if 
I may be allowed a vulgarism) more than any- 
thing. They will pretend to laugh at the idea 
at first, and will say, "Oh, nonsense!" You 
must then get excited, and insist that it is a 
fact. You need have no conscientious scruples 
on the subject, because the thing's nose really 
does resemble its father's — at all events quite 
as much as it does anything else in nature — 
being, as it is, a mere smudge. 

Do not despise these hints, my friends. 



IDLE THOUGHTS OF AN IDLE FELLOW. 113 

There may come a time when, with mamma 
on one side and grandmamma on the other, a 
group of admiring young ladies (not admiring 
you though), behind and a bald-headed dab of 
humanity in front, you will be extremely thank- 
ful for some idea of what to say. A man — an 
unmarried man, that is — is never seen to such 
disadvantage as when undergoing the ordeal of 
"seeing baby." A cold shudder runs down his 
back at the bare proposal, and the sickly smile 
with which he says how delighted he shall be, 
ought surely to move even a mother's heart, 
unless, as I am inclined to believe, the whole 
proceeding is a mere device, adopted by wives 
to discourage the visits of bachelor friends. 

It is a cruel trick, though, whatever its ex- 
cuse may be. The bell is rung, and somebody 
sent to tell nurse to bring baby down. This 
is the signal for all the females present to com- 
mence talking "baby," during which time, 
you are left to your own sad thoughts, and to 
speculations upon the practicability of sud- 
denly recollecting an important engagement, 
and the likelihood of your being believed if 
you do. Just when you have concocted an 
absurdly implausible tale about a man out- 
side, the door opens, and a tall, severe looking 
woman enters, carrying what at first sight 
appears to be a particularly skinny bolster, 
with the feathers all at one end. Instinct, 
however, tells you that this is the baby, and 
you rise with a miserable attempt at appear- 
ing eager. When the first gush of feminine 
enthusiasm with which the object in question 

8 Idle Thoughts 



114 IDLE THOUGHTS OF AN IDLE FELLOW. 

is received has died out, and the number of 
ladies talking- at once has been reduced to the 
ordinary four or five, the circle of fluttering 
petticoats divides, and room is made for you to 
step forward. This you do with much the 
same air that you would walk into the dock at 
Bow Street, and then, feeling unutterably 
miserable, you stand solemnly staring at the 
child. There is dead silence, and you know 
that every one is waiting for you to speak. 
You try to think of something to say, but find 
to your horror, that your reasoning faculties 
have left you. It is a moment of despair, and 
your evil genius, seizing the opportunity, sug- 
gests to you some of the most idiotic remarks 
that it is possible for a human being to per- 
petrate. Glancing round with an imbecile 
smile, you sniggeringly observe that "it hasn't 
got much hair, has it?" Nobody answers you 
for a minute, but at last the stately nurse says 
with much gravity — "It is not customary for 
children five weeks old to have long hair." 
Another silence follows this, and you feel you 
are being given a second chance, which you 
avail yourself of by inquiring if it can walk 
yet, or what they feed it on. 

By this time you have got to be regarded as 
not quite right in your head, and pity is the 
only thing felt for you. The nurse, however, 
is determined that, insane or not, there shall 
be no shirking, and that you shall go through 
your task to the end. In the tones of a high 
priestess, directing some religious mystery, 
she says, holding the bundle towards you, 



IDLE THOUGHTS OF AN IDLE FELLOW. 115 

"Take her in your arms, sir." You are too 
crushed to offer any resistance, and so meekly 
accept the burden. "Put your arm more 
down her middle, sir," says the high priestess, 
and then all step back and watch you intently 
as though you were going to do a trick 
with it. 

What to do you know no more than you did 
what to say. It is certain something must be 
done, however, and the only thing that occurs 
to you is to heave the unhappy infant up and 
down to the accompaniment of "oopsee-daisy," 
or some remark of equal intelligence. "I 
wouldn't jig her, sir, if I were you," says the 
nurse; "a very little upsets her." You 
promptly decide not to jig her, and sincerely 
hope that you have not gone too far already. 

At this point, the child itself, who has 
hitherto been regarding you with an expres- 
sion of mingled horror and disgust, puts an 
end to the nonsense by beginning to yell at the 
top of its voice, at which the priestess rushes 
forward and snatches it from j^ou with, 
"There, there, there! What did ums do to 
ums?" "How very extraordinary!" you say, 
pleasantly. "Whatever made it go off like 
that?" "Oh, why you must have done some- 
thing to her!" says the mother, indignantly; 
"the child wouldn't scream like that for noth- 
ing." It is evident they think 3^ou have been 
running pins into it. 

The brat is calmed at last, and would no 
doubt remain quiet enough, only some mis- 
chievous busybody points you out again with 



116 IDLE THOUGHTS OF AN IDLE FELLOW. 

"Who's this, baby?" and the intellig-ent child, 
recognizing you, howls louder than ever. 

Whereupon, some fat old lady remarks that 
"It's strange how children take a dislike to 
any one," "Oh, they know," replies another, 
mysteriously. "It's a wonderful thing," adds 
a third ; and then somebody looks sideways at 
you, convinced your are a scoundrel of the 
blackest dye ; and they glory in the beautiful 
idea that your true character, unguessed by 
your fellow-men, has been discovered by the 
untaught instinct of a little child. 

Babies, though, with all their crimes and 
-errors, are not without their use — not without 
use, surely, when they fill an empty heart; not 
without use when, at their call, sunbeams of 
love break through care-clouded faces; not 
without use when their little fingers press 
wrinkles into smiles. 

Odd little people! They are the uncon- 
scious comedians of the world's great stage. 
They supply the humor in life's all too 
heavy drama. Each one, a small but deter- 
mined opposition to the order of things in gen- 
eral, is forever doing the wrong thing at the 
wrong time, in the wrong place, and in the 
wrong way. The nurse-girl, who sent Jenny 
to see what Tommy and Totty were doing, 
and "tell *em they musn't," knew infantile 
nature. Give an average baby a fair chance, 
and if it doesn't do something it oughtn't to, a 
doctor should be called in at once. 

They have a genius for doing the most ridi- 
culous things, and they do them in a grave, 



IDLE THOUGHTS OF AN IDLE FELLOW. 117 

Stoical manner that is irresistible. The bns- 
iness-like air with which two of them will join 
hands and proceed due east at a break-neck 
toddle, while an excitable big sister is roaring 
for them to follow her in a westerly direction, 
is most amusing — except, perhaps, for the big 
sister. They walk round a soldier, staring at 
his legs with the greatest curiosity, and poke 
him to see if he is real. They stoutly main- 
tain, against all argument, and much to the 
discomfort of the victim, that the bashful 
young man at the end of the 'bus is "dadda. " 

A crowded street corner suggests itself to 
their minds as a favorable spot for the discus- 
sion of family affairs at a shrill treble. When 
in the middle of crossing the road, they are 
seized with a sudden impulse to dance, and the 
doorstep of a busy shop is the place they 
always select for sitting down and taking off 
their shoes. 

When at home, the}^ find the biggest walk- 
ing-stick in the house or an umbrella — open 
preferred — of much assistance in getting up- 
stairs. They discover that they love Mary 
Ann at the precise moment when that faith- 
ful domestic is blackleading the stove, and 
nothing will relieve their feelings but to em- 
brace her then and there. With regard to 
food, their favorite dishes are coke and cat's 
meat. They nurse pussy upside down, and 
they show their affection for the dog by pull- 
ing his tail. 

They are a deal of trouble, and they make a 
place untidy, and they cost a lot of money to 



118 IDLE THOUGHTS OF AN IDLE FELLOW. 

keep ; but still you would not have the house 
without them. It would not be home without 
their noisy tongues and their mischief-making 
hands. Would not the rooms seem silent with- 
out their pattering feet, and might not you 
stray apart if no prattling voices called you to- 
gether? 

It should be so, and yet I have sometimes 
thought the tiny hand seemed as a wedge, 
dividing. It is a bearish task to quarrel with 
that purest of all human affections — that per- 
fecting touch to a woman's life — a mother's 
love. It is a holy love, that we coarser-fibered 
men can hardly understand, and I would not 
be deemed to lack reverence for it Vv^hen I say 
that surely it need not swallow up all other 
affection. The baby need not take your whole 
heart, like the rich man who walled up the 
desert vv^ell. Is there not another thirsty trav- 
eler standing by? 

Do not, in your desire to be a good mother, 
forget to be a good wife. No need for all the 
thought and care to be only for one. Do not, 
whenever poor Edwin wants you to come out, 
answer indignantly, "What, and leave baby?" 
Do not spend all your evenings upstairs, and 
do not confine your conversation exclusively 
to whooping-cough and measles. My dear lit- 
tle woman, the child is not going to die every 
time it sneezes, the house is not bound to get 
burned down, and the nurse run away with a 
soldier, every time you go outside the front 
door; nor the cat sure to come and sit on the 
precious child's chest the moment you leave 



IDLE THOUGHTS OF AN IDLE FELLOW. 119 

the bedside. You worry yourself a good deal 
too much about that solitary chick, and you 
worry everybody else too. Try and think of 
your other duties, and your pretty face will not 
be always puckered into wrinkles, and there 
will be cheerfulness in the parlor as well as in 
the nursery. Think of your big baby a little. 
Dance him about a bit; call him pretty names; 
laugh at him now and then. It is only the 
first baby that takes up the whole of a 
v/oman's time. Five or six do not require 
nearly so much attention as one. But before 
then the mischief has been done. A house 
where there seems no room for him, and a 
wife too busy to think of him, have lost their 
hold on that so unreasonable husband of yours, 
and he has learned to look elsewhere for 
comfort and companionship. 

But there, there, there ! I shall get myself 
the character of a baby hater, if I talk any 
more in this strain. And Heaven knows I am 
not one. Who could be, to look into the lit- 
tle innocent faces clustered in timid helpless- 
ness round those great gates that open down 
into the world? 

The world ! the small round world ! what a 
vast, mysterious place it must seem to baby 
eyes! What a trackless continent the back 
garden appears! What marvelous explora- 
tions they make in the cellar under the stairs! 
With what awe they gaze down the long street 
wondering, like us bigger babies, when we 
gaze up at the stars, where it all ends! 

And down that longest street of all, that 



120 IDLE THOUGHTS OF AN IDLE FELLOW. 

long, dim street of life that stretches out 
before them — what grave, old-fashioned looks 
they seem to cast! What pitiful, frightened 
looks sometimes! I saw a little mite sitting on 
a doorstep in a Soho slum one night, and I 
shall never forget the look that the gas-lamp 
showed me on its wizen face — a look of dull 
despair, as if, from the squalid court, the vista 
of its own squalid life had risen, ghost-like, 
and struck its heart dead with horror. 

Poor little feet, just commencing the stony 
journey! We, old travelers, far down the 
road, can only pause to wave a hand to you. 
You come out of the dark midst, and we, look- 
ing back, see you, so tiny in the distance, 
standing on the brow of the hill, your arms 
stretched out toward us. God speed you ! We 
would stay and take your little hands in ours, 
but the murmur of the great sea is in our ears, 
and we may not linger. We must hasten 
down, for the shadowy ships are waiting to 
spread their sable sails. 



IDLE THOUGHTS OF AN IDLE FELLOW. 121 



ON EATING AND DRINKING. 

I always was fond of eating and drinking, 
even as a child — especially eating in those 
early days. I had an appetite then, also a 
digestion. I remember a dull- eyed, livid-com- 
plexioned gentleman coming to dine at our 
house once. He watched me eating for about 
five minutes, quite fascinated, seemingly, and 
then he turned to my father with, ''Does your 
boy ever suffer from dyspepsia?" 

''I never heard him complain of anything of 
that kind," replied my father. "Do you ever 
suffer from dyspepsia. Collywobbles?" (They 
called me Collywobbles, but it was not my real 
name.) 

''No, pa," I answered. After which, I 
added, "What is dyspepsia, pa?" 

My livid complexioned friend regarded me 
with a look of mingled amazement and envy. 
Then in a tone of infinite pity he slowly said, 
"You will know — some day." 

My poor, dear mother used to say she liked 
to see me eat, and it has alwa57S been a pleasant 
reflection to me since, that I must have given 
her much gratification in that direction. A 
growing, healthy lad, taking plenty of exercise, 
and careful to restrain himself from indulging 
in too much study, can generally satisfy the 



122 IDLE THOUGHTS OF AN IDLE FELLOW. 

most exacting expectations as regards his feed- 
ing powers. 

It is amusing to see boys eat, when you have 
not got to pay for it. Their idea of a square 
meal is a pound and a half of roast beef with 
five or six good- sized potatoes (soapy ones 
preferred, as being more substantial), plenty 
of greens, and four thick slices of Yorkshire 
pudding, followed by a couple of currant dum- 
plings, a few green apples, and a pen'orth of 
nuts, half-a-dozen jumbles, and a bottle of 
ginger beer. After that, they play at horses^ 

How they must despise us men', who require 
to sit quiet for a couple of hours after dining 
off a spoonful of clear soup and the wing of a 
chi'cken ! 

But the boys have not all the advantages on 
their side. A boy never enjoys the luxury of 
being satisfied. A boy never feels full. He 
can never stretch out his legs, put his hands 
behind his head, and, closing his eyes, sink 
into the ethereal blissfulness that encompasses 
the well-dined man. A dinner makes no 
difference whatever to a boy. To a man, it is 
as a good fairy's portion, and, after it, the world 
appears a brighter and a better place. A man 
who has dined satisfactoril}^ experiences a 
yearning love toward all his fellow-creatures. 
He strokes the cat quite gently, and calls it 
" poor pussy, " in tones full of the tenderest 
emotion. He sympathizes with the members 
of the German band outside, and wonders if 
they are cold; and, for the moment, he does 
not even hate his wife's relations. 



IDLE THOUGHTS OF AN IDLE FELLOW. 123 

A g-ood dinner brings out all the softer side 
of a man. Under its genial influence, the 
gloomy and morose become jovial and chatty. 
Sour, starchy individuals, who all the rest of 
the day go about looking as if they lived on 
vinegar and Epsom salts, break out into 
wreathed smiles after dinner and exhibit a 
tendency to pat small children on the head, 
and to talk to them — vaguely — about sixpences. 
Serious young men thaw, and become mildly 
cheerful; and snobbish young men, of the 
heavy mustache type, forget to make them- 
selves objectionable. 

I always feel sentimental myself after din- 
ner. It is the only time when I can properly 
appreciate love stories. Then, when the hero 
clasps "her" to his heart in one last wild em- 
brace, and stifles a sob, I feel as sad as tliough I 
had dealt at whist, and turned up only a deuce ; 
and when the heroine dies in the end, I weep. 
If I read the sam.e tale early in the morning, I 
should sneer at it. Digestion, or rather indi- 
gestion, has a marvelous effect upon the heart. 
If I want to v\rrite anything very pathetic — I 
mean, if I want to try to write anything very 
pathetic, I eat a large plateful of hot buttered 
muffms about an hour beforehand, and, then, 
by the time I sit down to my work, a feeling of 
unutterable melancholy has come over me. I 
picture heart-broken lovers parting forever at 
lonely wayside stiles, while the sad twilight 
deepens around them, and only the tinkling of 
a distant sheep-bell breaks the sorrow-laden 
silence. Old men sit and gaze at withered 



124 IDLE THOUGHTS OF AN IDLE FELLOW. 

flowers till their sight is dimmed by the mist of 
tears. Little dainty maidens wait and watch at 
open casements; but he "cometh not," and 
the heavy years roll by, and the snnny gold 
tresses wear white and thin. The babies that 
they dandled have become grown men and 
women with podgy torments of their own, and 
the playmates that they laughed with are lying 
very silent under the waving grass. But still 
they wait and watch, till the dark shadows of 
the unknown night steal up and gather round 
them, and the world with its childish troubles 
fades from their aching eyes. 

I see pale corpses tossed on white-foamed 
waves, and death-beds stained with bitter 
tears, and graves in trackless deserts. I hear 
the wild wailing of women, the low moaning of 
the little children, the dry sobbing of strong 
men. It's all the muffins. I could not conjure 
up one melancholy fancy upon a mutton chop 
and a glass of champagne. 

A full stomach is a great aid to poetry, and, 
indeed, no sentiment of any kind can stand 
upon an empty one. We have not time nor 
inclination to indulge in fanciful troubles, 
until we have got rid of our real misfortunes. 
We do not sigh over dead dicky-birds with the 
bailiff in the house; and, when we do not 
know where on earth to get our next shilling 
from, we do not worry whether our mistress's 
smiles are cold, or hot, or lukewarm, or any- 
thing else about them. 

Foolish people — when I say "foolish people" 
in this contemptuous way, I mean people who 



IDLE THOUGHTS OF AN IDLE FELLOW. 125 

entertain different opinions to mine. If there 
is one person I do despise more than another, 
it is the man who does not think exactly the 
same on all topics as I do. Foolish people, I 
say, then, who have never experienced much of 
either, will tell you that mental distress is far 
more agonizing than bodily. Romantic and 
touching theory! so comforting to the love-sick 
young sprig who looks down patronizingly at 
some poor devil with a white starved face, and 
thinks to himself, *'Ah, how happy you are 
compared with me!" so soothing to fat old 
gentlemen who cackle about the superiority of 
poverty over riches. But it is all nonsense — 
all cant. An aching head soon makes one 
forget an aching heart. A broken finger will 
drive away all recollections of an empty chair. 
And when a man feels really hungry, he does 
not feel anything else. 

We sleek, well-fed folk can hardly realize 
what feeling hungry is like. We know what it 
is to have no appetite, and not to care for the 
dainty victuals placed before us, but we do not 
understand what it means to sicken for food — 
to die for bread while others waste it — to gaze 
with famished eyes upon coarse fare steaming 
behind dingy windows, longing for a pen'orth 
of pease pudding, and not having the penny to 
buy it — to feel that a crust would be delicious, 
and that a bone would be a banquet. 

Hunger is a luxury to us, a piquant, flavor- 
giving sauce. It is well worth while to get 
hungry and thirsty, merely to discover how 
much gratification can be obtained from eating 



126 IDLE THOUGHTS OF AN IDLE FELLOW. 

and drinking. If yon wish to thoroughly 
enjoy your dinner, take a thirty-mile country 
walk after breakfast, and don't touch anything 
till you get back. How your eyes will glisten 
at sight of the white table cloth and steaming 
dishes then! With what a sigh of content you 
will put down the empty beer tankard, and 
take up your knife and fork! And how com- 
fortable you feel afterwards, as you push back 
your chair, light a cigar, and beam round upon 
everybody. 

Make sure, how^ever, when adopting this 
plan, that the good dinner is really to be had 
at the end, or the disappointment is trying. I 
remember once a friend and I — dear old Joe, it 
was. Ah! how we lose one another in life's 
mist. It must be eight years since I last saw 
Joseph Taboys. How pleasant it would be to 
meet his jovial face again, to clasp his strong 
hand, and to hear his cheery laugh once more! 
He owes me fourteen shillings, too. Well, we 
were on a holiday together, and one morning 
we had breakfast early, and started for a 
tremendous long walk. We had ordered a 
duck for dinner over night. We said, ''Get a 
big one, because we shall come home awfully 
hungry;" and, as we were going out, our 
landlady came up in great spirits. She said, 
*'I have got you gentlemen a duck, if you like. 
If you get through that you'll do well;" and 
she held up a bird about the size of a doormat. 
We chuckled at the sight, and said we would 
try. We said it with self-conscious pride, like 



IDLE THOUGHTS OF AN IDLE FELLOW. 127 

men who know their own power. Then we 
started. 

We lost our way, of course. I always do in 
the country, and it does make me so wild, 
because it is no use asking direction of any of 
the people you meet. One might as well 
inquire of a lodging-house slavey the way to 
make beds, as expect a country bumpkin to 
know the road to the next village. You have 
to shout the question about three times, before 
the sound of your voice penetrates his skull. 
At the third time, he slowly raises his head, 
and stares blankly at you. You yell it at him 
then for the fourth time, and he repeats it 
after you. He ponders while you could count 
a couple of hundred, after which, speaking at 
the rate of three words a minute, he fancies 

you "couldn't do better than " Here he 

catches sight of another idiot coming down the 
road, and bawds out to him the particulars, re- 
questing his advice. The two then argue the 
case for a quarter of an hour or so, and finally 
agree that you had better go straight down the 
lane, round to the right, and cross by the third 
style, and keep to the left by old Jimmy Mil- 
cher's cow-shed and across the seven-acre field, 
and through the gate by Squire Grubbin's hay- 
stack keeping the bridle-])ath for a while, till 
you come opposite the hill where the wdndmill 
used to be — but it's gone now — and round to 
the right, leaving Stiggin's plantation behind 
you; and you say "Thank you," and go away 
with a splitting headache, but without the 
faintest notion of your way, the only clear idea 



128 IDLE THOUGHTS OF AN IDLE FELLOW. 

you have on the subject being that somewhere 
or other there is a stile which has to be got 
over; and at the next turn, you come upon 
four stiles, all leading in different directions! 

We had undergone this ordeal two or three 
times. We had tramped over fields. We had 
waded through brooks, and scrambled over 
hedges and walls. We had had a row as to 
whose fault it was that we had first lost our 
way. We had got thoroughly disagreeable, 
footsore, and weary. But, throughout it all, 
the hope of that duck kept us up. A fairy-like 
vision, it floated before our tired eyes, and drew 
us onward. The thought of it was as a trumpet- 
call to the fainting. We talked of it, and 
cheered each other with our recollections of it. 
"Come along," we said, "the duck will be 
spoilt," 

We felt a strong temptation at one point, to 
turn into a village inn as we passed, and have 
a cheese and a few loaves between us; but we 
heroically restrained ourselves: we should 
enjoy the duck all the better for being 
famished. 

We fancied we smelt it when we got into the 
town and did the last quarter of a mile in three 
minutes. We rushed upstairs, and washed 
ourselves, and changed our clothes, and came 
down, and pulled our chairs up to the table, 
and sat and rubbed our hands while the land- 
lady removed the covers, when I seized the 
knife and fork and started to carve. 

It seemed to want a lot of carving. I strug- 
gled with it for about five minutes without 



IDLE THOUGHTS OF AN IDLE FELLOW. 129 

making the slightest impression, and then Joe, 
who had been eating potatoes, wanted to know 
if it wouldn't be better for some one to do the 
job that understood carving. I took no notice 
of his foolish remark, but attacked the bird 
again; and so vigorously this time, that the 
animal left the dish, and took refuge in the 
fender. 

We soon had it out of that though, and I 
was prepared to make another effort. But Joe 
was getting unpleasant. He said that if he 
had thought we were to have a game of blind 
hookey with the dinner, he would have got a 
bit of bread and cheese outside. 

I was too exhausted to argue. I laid down 
the knife and fork with dignity, and took a side 
seat; and Joe went for the wretched creature. 
He worked away, in silence for a while, and 
then he muttered, "Damn the duck," and took 
his coat off. 

We did break the thing up at length, with 
the aid of a chisel ; but it was perfectly impos- 
sible to eat it, and we had to make a dinner off 
the vegetables and an apple tart. We tried a 
mouthful of the duck, but it was like eating 
India-rubber. 

It was a wicked sin to kill that drake. But 
there! there's no respect for old institutions in 
his country. 

I started this paper with the idea of writing 
about eating and drinking, but I seemed to 
have confined my remarks entirely to eating as 
yet. Well, you see, drinking is one of those 
subjects with which it is unadvisable to appear 

9 Idle Thoaghts 



130 IDLE THOUGHTS OF AN IDLE FELLOW. 

too well acquainted. The days are gone by 
when it was considered manly to go to bed 
intoxicated every night, and a clear head and a 
firm hand no longer draw down upon their 
owner the reproach of effeminacy. On the con- 
trary, in these sadly degenerate days, an evil- 
smelling breath, a blotchy face, a reeling gait, 
and a husky voice are regarded as the hall- 
marks of the cad rather than of the gentleman. 

Even nowadays, though, the thirstiness of 
mankind is something supernatural. We are 
for ever drinking on one excuse or another. 
A man never feels comfortable unless he has a 
glass before him. We drink before meals, and 
with meals, and after meals. We drink when 
we meet a friend, also when we part from a 
friend. We drink when we are talking, when 
we are reading, and when we are thinking. 
We drink one another's healths, and spoil our 
own. We drink the Queen, and the Army, 
and the Ladies, and everybody else that is 
drinkable; and I believe, if the supply ran 
short, we should drink our mothers-in-law. 

By the way, we never eat anybody's health, 
always drink it. Why should we not stand up 
now and then and eat a tart to somebody's 
success? 

To me, I confess, the constant necessity of 
drinking under which the majority of men 
labor is quite unaccountable. I can under- 
stand people drinking to drown care, or to 
drive away maddening thoughts, well enough. 
I can understand the ignorant masses loving to 
s(5ak themselves in drinla^oh, yes, it's very 



IDLE THOUGHTS OF AN IDLE FELLOW. 131 

shocking that they should, of course — very- 
shocking to us who live in cosy homes, with all 
the graces and pleasures of life around us, 
that the dwellers in damp cellars and windy 
attics should creep from their dens of misery 
into the warmth and glare of the public-house 
bar, and seek to float for a brief space away 
from their dull world upon a Lethe stream of 
gin. 

But think, before you hold up your hands, 
in horror at their ill-living, what "life" for 
these wretched creatures really means. Picture 
the squalid misery of their brutish existence, 
dragged on from year to year in the narrow, 
noisome room, where, huddled like vermin in 
sewers, they welter, and sicken, and sleep; 
where dirt-grimed children scream and fight, 
and sluttish, shrill-voiced women cuff, and 
curse, and nag; where the street outside teems 
with roaring filth, and the house ground is a 
bedlam of riot and stench. 

Think what a sapless stick this fair flower of 
life must be to them, devoid of mind and soul. 
The horse in his stall scents the sweet hay, 
and munches the ripe corn contentedly. The 
watch-dog in his kennel blinks at the grateful 
sun, dreams of a glorious chase over the dewy 
fields, and wakes with a yelp of gladness to 
greet a caressing hand. But the clod-like life 
of these human logs never knows one ray of 
light. From the hour when they crawl from 
their comfortless bed to the hour when they 
lounge back into it again, they never live one 
moment of real life. Recreation, amusement, 



132 IDLE THOUGHTS OF AN IDLE FELLOW. 

companionship, they know not the meaning" of. 
Joy, sorrow, laughter, tears, love, friendship, 
longing, despair, are idle words to them. 
From the day when their baby eyes first look 
out upon their sordid world to the day when, 
with an oath, they close them forever, and 
their bones are shoveled out of sight, they 
never warm to one touch of human sympathy, 
never thrill to a single thought, never start to 
a single hope. In the name of the God of mercy 
let them pour the maddening liquor down 
their throats, and feel for one brief moment 
that they live! 

Ah ! we may talk sentiment as much as we 
like, but the stomach is the real seat of happi- 
ness in this world. The kitchen is the chief 
temple wherein we worship, its roaring fire is 
our vestal f^ame, and the cook is our great high- 
priest. He is a mighty magician and a kindly 
one. He soothes away all sorrow and care. 
He drives forth all enmity, gladdens all love. 
Our God is great, and the cook is his prophet. 
Let us eat, drink and be merry. 




'Ere's a gentleman about fae rooms.' " — Page 138. 

Idle Thoughts of an Idle Fellow. 



IDLE THOUGHTS OF AN IDLE FELLOW. 133 



ON ^'FURNISHED APARTMENTS." 

*'Oh, you have some rooms to let." 

"Mother!" 

"Well, what is it?" 

*' 'Ere's a genfeman about the rooms." 

"Ask 'im in. I'll be up in a minute." 

"Will yer step inside, sir? Mother '11 be up 
in a minute." 

So you step inside, and, after a minute, 
"mother" comes slowly up the kitchen stairs, 
untying her apron as she comes, and calling 
down instructions to some one below. about the 
potatoes. 

"Good- morning, sir," says "mother," with 
a washed-out smile; "will you step this way, 
please?" 

"Oh, it's hardly worth while my coming up," 
you say; "what sort of rooms are they, and 
how much?" 

"Well," says the landlady, "if you'll step 
upstairs, I'll show them to you." 

So, wilh a protesting murmur, meant to im- 
ply that any waste of time complained of here- 
after must not be laid to your charge, you fol- 
low "mother" upstairs. 

At the first landing, you run up against a 
pail and a broom, whereupon "mother" ex- 
patiates upon the unreliability of servant girls, 



134 IDLE THOUGHTS OF AN IDLE FELLOW. 

and bawls over the balusters for Sarah to 
come and take them away at once. When you 
get outside the rooms, she pauses, with her 
hand upon the door, to explain to you that they 
are rather untidy just at present, as the last 
lodger left only yesterday; and she also adds 
that this is their cleaning day — it always is. 
With this understanding, you enter, and both 
stand solemnly feasting your eyes upon the 
scene before you. The rooms cannot be said 
to appear inviting. Even "mother's" face be- 
trays no admiration. Untenanted "furnished 
apartments," viewed in the morning sunlight, 
do not inspire cheery sensations. There is a 
lifeless air about them. It is a very different 
thing when you have settled down and are liv- 
ing in them. With your old familiar household 
goods to greet your gaze whenever you glance 
up, and all your little knick-knacks spread 
around you — with the photos of all the girls 
that you have loved and lost ranged upon the 
mantelpiece, and half a dozen disreputable- 
looking pipes scattered about in painfully prom- 
inent positions — with one carpet slipper peep- 
ing from beneath the coal-box, and the other 
perched on the top of the piano — with the well- 
known pictures to hide the dingy walls, and 
these dear old friends, your books, higgledy- 
piggledy all over the place — with the bits of old 
blue china that your mother prized, and the 
screen she worked in those far bygone days 
when the sweet old face was laughing and 
young, and the white soft hair tumbled in 



IDLE THOUGHTS OF AN IDLE FELLOW. 135 

gold-brown curls from under the coat-scuttle 
bonnet — 

Ah, old screen, what a gorgeous personage 
you must have been in your young days, when 
the tulips and roses and lilies (all growing from 
one stem) were fresh in their glistening sheen ! 
Many a summer and winter have come and 
gone since then, my friend, and you have 
played with the dancing firelight, until you 
have grown sad and gray. Your brilliant col- 
ors are fast fading now, and the envious moths 
have gnawed your silken threads. You are 
withering away like the dead hands that wove 
you. Do you ever think of those dead hands! 
You seem so grave and thouglitful, sometimes, 
that I almost think you do. Come, you and I 
and the deep-glowing embers, let us talk to- 
gether. Tell me, in your silent language, what 
you remember of those young days, when you 
lay on my little mother's lap, and her girlish 
fingers played with your rainbow tresses. Was 
there never a lad near, sometimes — never a 
lad who would seize one of those little hands 
to smother it with kisses, and who would per- 
sist in holding it, thereby sadly interfering 
with the progress of your making? Was not 
your frail existence often put in jeopardy by 
this same clumsy, headstrong lad, who would 
toss you disrespectfully aside that he — not sat- 
isfied with one — might hold both hands, and 
gaze up into the loved eyes? I can see that 
lad now through the haze of the flickering tvv^i- 
light. He is an eager, bright-eyed boy, with 
pinching, dandy shoes and tight-fitting smalls, 



136 IDLE THOUGHTS OF AN IDLE FELLOW. 

snowy shirt frill and stock, and — oh! such curly- 
hair. A wild, light-hearted boy ! Can he be 
the great, grave gentleman upon whose stick 
I used to ride cross-legged, the care-worn man 
into whose thoughtful face I used to gaze with 
childish reverence, and whom I used to call 
"father?" You say "yes," old screen; but 
are you quite sure? It is a serious charge you 
are bringing; can it be possible? Did he have 
to kneel down in those wonderful smalls, and 
pick you up, and rearrange you, before he was 
forgiven, and his curly head smoothed by my 
mother's little hand? Ah! old screen, and did 
the lads and the lassies go making love fifty 
years ago just as they do now? Are men and 
women so unchanged? Did little maidens' 
hearts beat the same under pearl embroidered 
bodices as they do under Mother Hubbard 
cloaks? Have steel casques and chimney-pot 
hats made no difference to the brains that 
work beneath them? Oh, Time! great Chro- 
nos ! and is this your power? Have you dried 
up seas and leveled mountains and left the tiny 
human heart-strings to defy you? Ah, yes! 
they were spun by a Mightier than thou, and 
the}^ stretch beyond your narrow ken, for their 
ends are made fast in eternity. Ay, you may 
mow down the leaves and the blossoms, but 
the roots of life lie too deep for your sickle to 
sever. You re-fashion Nature's garments, but 
you cannot vary by a jot the throbbings of her 
pulse. The world rolls round obedient to your 
laws, but the heart of man is not of your king- 



IDLE THOUGHTS OF AN IDLE FELLOW. 137 

dom, for in its birthplace "a thousand years 
are but as yesterday. " 

I am getting away, though, I fear, from my 
''furnished apartments," and I hardly know 
how to get back. But I have some excuse for 
my meanderings this time. It is a piece of old 
furniture that has led me astray, and fancies 
gather, somehow, round old furniture, like 
moss around old stones. One's chairs and 
tables get to be almost part of one's life, and 
to seem like quiet friends. What strange tales 
the wooden-headed old fellows could tell, did 
they but choose to speak ! At what unsuspected 
comedies and tragedies have they not assisted ! 
What bitter tears have been sobbed into that 
old sofa cushion! What passionate whisper- 
ings the settee must have overheard ! 

New furniture has no charms for me, com- 
pared with old. It is the old things that we 
love — the old faces, the old books, the old 
jokes. New furniture can make a palace, but 
it takes old furniture to make a home. Not 
merely old in itself, lodging-house furniture 
generally is that, but it must be old to us, old 
in associations and recollections. The furni- 
ture of furnished apartments, however ancient 
it may be in reality, is new to our eyes, and 
we feel as though we could never get on with 
it. As, too, in the case of all fresh acquaint- 
ances, whether wooden or human (and there is 
very little difference between the two species 
sometimes) everything impresses you with its 
worst aspect. The knobby wood-work and the 
shiny horse-hair covering of the easy-chair sug- 



138 IDLE THOUGHTS OF AN IDLE FELLOW. 

gest anything but ease. The mirror is smoky. 
The curtains want washing. The carpet is 
frayed. The table looks as if it would go over 
the instant anything was rested on it. The 
grate is cheerless, the wall-paper hideous. The 
ceiling appears to have had coffee spilt all over 
it, and the ornaments — well, they are worse 
than the wall-paper. 

There must surely be some special and se- 
cret manufactory for the production of lodg- 
ing-house ornarnxnts. Precisely the same arti- 
cles are to be found at every lodging-house all 
over the kingdom, and they are never seen 
anywhere else. There are the two — what do 
you call them? they stand one at each end of 
the mantelpiece, where they are never safe; 
and they are hung round with long triangular 
slips of glass that clank against one another 
and make you nervous. In the commoner 
class of rooms these works of art are supple- 
mented by a couple of pieces of china which 
might each be meant to represent a cov/ sitting 
upon its hind legs, or a model of the temple of 
Diana at Ephesus, or a dog, or anything else 
you like to fancy. Somewhere about the room 
you come across a bilious-looking object, 
which, at first, you take to be a lump of dough, 
left about by one of the children, but which, 
on scrutiny, seems to resemble an underdone 
Cupid. This thing the landlady calls a statue. 
Then there is a "sampler" worked by some 
idiot related to the family, a picture of the 
''Huguenots," two or three Scripture texts, 
and a highly- framed and glazed certificate to 



IDLE THOUGHTS OF AN IDLE FELLOW. 139 

the effect that the father has been vaccinated, 
or is an Oddfellow, or something of that sort. 

You examine these various attractions, and 
then dismally ask what the rent is. 

*' That's rather a good deal," you say on 
hearing the figure. 

"Well, to tell you the truth," answers the 
landlady with a sudden burst of candor, "I've 
always had" — (mentioning a sum of good deal 
in excess of the first named amount), "and be- 
fore that I used to have" — (a still higher 
figure). 

What the rent of apartments must have 
been twenty years ago makes one shudder to 
think of. Every landlady makes you feel thor- 
oughl}^ ashamed of yourself by informing you, 
whenever the subject crops up, that she used 
to get twice as much for her rooms as you are 
paying. Young men lodgers of the last gener- 
ation must have been of a wealthier class than 
they are now, or they must have ruined them- 
selves. I should have had to live in an attic. 

Curious, that in lodgings, the rule of life is 
reversed. The higher j^ou get up in the world, 
the lower you come down in your lodgings. 
On the lodging-house ladder, the poor man is 
at the top, the rich man underneath. You 
start in the attic, and work your way down to 
the first floor. 

A good many great men have lived in attics, 
and some have died there. Attics, sa5^s the 
dictionary, are "places where lumber is 
stored," and the world has used them to store 
a good deal of its lumber in at one time or an- 



140 IDLE THOUGHTS OF AN IDLE FELLOW. 

Other. Its preachers and painters and poets, 
its deep-browed men who will find out things, 
its fire-eyed men who will tell truths that no 
one wants to hear — these are the lumber that 
the world hides away in its attics. Haydn 
grew up in an attic, and Chatterton starved in 
one. Addison and Goldsmith wrote in garrets. 
Faraday and De Quincy knew them well. Dr. 
Johnson camped cheerfully in them, sleeping 
soundly — too soundly sometimes — upon their 
truckle beds, like the sturdy old soldier of for- 
tune that he was, inured to hardship and all 
careless of himself. Dickens spent his youth 
among them, Morland his old age — alas! a 
drunken, premature old age. Hans Andersen, 
the fairy king, dreamt his sweet fancies be- 
neath their sloping roofs. Poor, wayward- 
hearted Collins leant his head upon their crazy 
tables; priggish Benjamin Franklin; Savage, 
the wrong-headed, much troubled, when he 
could afford any softer bed than a doorstep; 
young Bloomfield, '* Bobby" Burns, Hogarth, 
Watts, the engineer — the roll is endless. Ever 
since the habitations of men were reared two 
stories high, has the garret been the nursery 
of genius. 

No one who honors the aristocracy of mind 
can feel ashamed of acquaintanceship with 
them. Their damp-stained walls are sacred to 
the memory of noble names. If all the wis- 
dom of the world and all its arts — all the spoils 
that it has won from Nature, all the fire that it 
has snatched from Heaven — were gathered to- 
gether and divided into heaps, and we could 



IDLE THOUGHTS OF AN IDLE FELLOW. 141 

point and say, for instance: — These mighty 
truths were flashed forth in the brilliant salon, 
amidst the ripple of light laughter and 
the sparkle of bright eyes; and this deep 
knowledge was dug up in the quiet study, 
where the bust of Pallas looks serenely down 
on the leather-scented shelves; and This heap 
belongs to the crowded street; and That to the 
daisied field — the heap that would tower up 
high above the rest, as a mountain above hills, 
would be the one at which we should look up 
and say: this noblest pile of all — these glorious 
paintings and this wondrous music, these 
trumpet words, these solemn thoughts, these 
daring deeds, they were forged and fashioned 
amidst misery and pain in the sordid squalor 
of the city garret. There, from their eyries, 
while the world heaved and throbbed below, 
the kings of men sent forth their eagle thoughts 
to wing their flight through the ages. There, 
where the sunlight streaming through the 
broken panes, fell on rotting board and crumb- 
ling walls ; there, from their lofty thrones, those 
rag-clothed Joves have hurled their thunder- 
bolts and shaken, before now, the earth to its 
foundations. 

Huddle them up in your lumber-rooms, O 
world! Shut them fast in, and turn the key 
of poverty upon them. Weld close the bars, 
and let them fret their hero lives away within 
the narrow cage. Leave them there to starve, 
and rot, and die. Laugh at the frenzied beat- 
ings of their hands against the door. Roll 
onward in your dust and noise, and pass them 
by, forgotten. 



142 IDLE THOUGHTS OF AN IDLE FELLOW. 

But take care, lest they turn and sting youL 
All do not, like the fabled Phoenix, warble 
sweet melodies in their agony ; sometimes they 
spit venom — venom you must breathe whether 
you will or no, for you cannot seal their 
mouths, though you may fetter their limbs. 
You can lock the door upon them, but they 
burst open their shaky lattices, and call out- 
over the house tops so that men cannot but hear. 

You hounded wild Rousseau into the mean- 
est garret of the Rue St. Jacques, and jeered 
at his angry shrieks. But the thin, piping 
tones swelled, a hundred years later, into the 
sullen roar of the French Revolution, and civ- 
ilization to this day is quivering to the rever- 
berations of his voice. 

As for myself, however, I like an attic. Not 
to live in ; as residences they are inconve- 
nient. There is too much getting up and down 
stairs connected with them to please me. It 
puts one unpleasantly in mind of the tread- 
mill. The form of the ceiling offers too many 
facilities for bumping your head, and too few 
for shaving. And the note of the tom-cat, as 
he sings to his love in the stilly night, outside 
on the tiles, becomes positively distasteful 
when heard so near. 

No, for living in, give me a suite of rooms 
on the first floor of a Piccadilly mansion (I 
wish somebody would!); but, for thinking in^ 
let me have an attic up ten flights of stairs in 
the densest quarter of the city. I have all 
Herr Teufelsdrockh's affection for attics. 
There is a sublimity about their loftiness. 1 



IDLE THOUGHTS OF AN IDLE FELLOW. 143 

love to "sit at ease and look down upon the 
wasps' nest beneath;" to listen to the dull 
murmur of the human tide, ebbing and flow- 
ing ceaselessly through the narrow streets and 
lanes below. How small men seem, how like 
a swarm of ants sweltering in endless confu- 
sion on their tiny hill! How petty seems the 
work on which they are hurrying and skurry- 
ing ! How childishly they jostle against one 
another, and turn to snarl and scratch! They 
jabber and screech and curse, but their puny 
voices do not reach up here. They fret, and 
fume, and rage, and pant, and die; '*but I, 
mein Werther, sit above it all ; I am alone with 
the stars. ' ' 

The most extraordinary attic I ever came 
across was one a friend and I once shared, 
many years ago. Of all eccentrically planned 
things, from Bradshaw to the maze at Hamp- 
ton court, that room was the eccentricalest. 
The architect who designed it must have been 
a genius, though I cannot help thinking that 
his talents would have been better employed 
in contriving puzzles than in shaping human 
habitations. No figure in Euclid could give 
any idea of that apartment. It contained 
seven corners, two of the walls sloped to a 
point, and the window was just over the fire- 
place. The only possible position for the bed- 
stead was between the door and the cupboard. 
To get anything out of the cupboard, we had 
to scramble over the bed, and a large percent- 
age of the various commodities thus obtained 
were absorbed by the bedclothes. Indeed, so 



144 IDLE THOUGHTS OF AN IDLE FELLOW. 

many things were spilled and dropped upon 
the bed, that, toward night-time, it had be- 
come a sort of small co-operative store. Coal 
was what it always had most in stock. We 
used to keep our coal in the bottom part of the 
cupboard, and, when any was wanted, we had 
to climb over the bed, fill a shovelful, and 
then crawl back. ,It was an exciting moment 
when we reached the middle of the bed. We 
would hold our breath, fix our eyes upon the 
shovel, and poise ourselves for the last move. 
The next instant, we, and the coals, and the 
shovel, and the bed would be all mixed up 
together. 

I've heard of the people going into raptures 
over beds of coal. We slept in one every 
night, and were not in the least stuck up 
about it. 

But our attic, unique though it was, had by 
no means exhausted the architect's sense of 
humor. The arrangement of the whole house 
was a model of originality. All the doors 
opened outward, so that, if any one wanted to 
leave a room at the same moment that you 
were coming downstairs, it was unpleasant for 
you. There was no ground-floor, its ground- 
floor belonged to a house in the next court, 
and the front door opened direct upon a flight 
of stairs leading down to the cellar. Visitors, 
on entering the house, would suddenly shoot 
past the person who had answered the door 
to them, and disappear down these stairs. 
Those of a nervous temperament used to imag- 
ine that it was a trap laid for them, and would 



IDLE THOUGHTS OF AN IDLE FELLOW. 145 

shout murder, as they lay on their backs at the 
bottom, till somebody came and picked them 
up. 

It is a long time ago, now, that I last saw 
the inside of an attic. I have tried various 
floors since, but I have not found that they 
have made much difference to me. Life tastes 
much the same, whether we quaff it from a 
golden goblet or drink it out of a stone mug. 
The hours come laden with the same mixture 
of joy and sorrow, no matter where we wait 
for them. A waistcoat of broadcloth or of fus- 
tian is alike to an aching heart, and we laugh 
no merrier on velvet cushions than we did on 
wooden chairs. Often have I sighed in those 
low-ceilinged rooms, yet disappointments have 
come neither less nor lighter since I quitted 
them. Life works upon a compensating bal- 
ance, and the happiness we gain in one direc- 
tion we lose in another. As our means in- 
crease, so do our desires; and we ever stand 
midway between the two. When we reside in 
an attic we enjoy a supper of fried fish and 
stout. When we occupy the first floor, it takes 
an elaborate dinner at the "Continental" to 
give us the same amount of satisfaction. 



10 Idle Thoughts 



146 IDLE THOUGHTS OF AN IDLE FELLOW. 



OF DRESS AND DEPORTMENT. 

They say — people who ought to be ashamed 
of themselves do — that the consciousDess of 
being well dressed imparts a blissfulness to 
the human heart that religion is powerless to 
bestow. I am afraid these cynical persons are 
sometimes correct. I know that when I was a 
very young man (many, many years ago, as the 
story-books say), and wanted cheering up, I 
used to go and dress myself in all my best 
clothes. If I had been annoyed in any man- 
ner — if my washerwoman had discharged me, 
for instance; or my blank verse poem had 
been returned for the tenth time, with the 
editor's compliments, "and regrets that owing: 
to want of space he is unable to avail himself 
of kind offer," or I have been snubbed by 
the woman I loved as man never loved before. 

■ By the way, it's really extraordinary 

what a variety of ways of loving there must 
be. We all do it as it was never done before. 
I don't know how our great-grandchildren will 
manage. They will have to do it on their 
heads by their time, if they persist in not clash- 
ing with any previous method. 

Well, as I was saying, when these unpleas- 
ant sort of things happened, and I felt crushed, 
I put on all my best clothes, and v^^ent out. It 



IDLE THOUGHTS OF AN IDLE FELLOW. 147 

brought back my vanishing self-esteem. In a 
glossy new hat, and a pair of trousers with a 
fold down the front (carefully preserved by 
keeping them under the bed — I don't mean 
on the floor, you know, but between the bed 
and the mattress), I felt I was somebody, and 
that there were other washerwomen ; aye, and 
even other girls to love, and who would, per- 
haps, appreciate a clever, good-looking young 
fellow. I didn't care; that was my reckless 
way. I would make love to other maidens, I 
felt that in those clothes I could do it. 

They have a wonderful deal to do with 
courting, clothes have. It is half the battle. 
At all events, the young man thinks so, and it 
generally takes him a couple of hours to get 
himself \iv for the occasion. His first half- 
hour is occupied in trying to decide whether to 
wear his light suit with a cane and drab billy- 
cock, or his black tails with a chimney-pot hat 
and his new umbrella. He is sure to be unfor- 
tunate in either decision. If he wears his light 
suit and takes the stick, it comes on to rain, 
and he reaches the house in a damp and 
muddy condition, and spends the evening try- 
ing to' hide his boots. If, on the other hand, 
he decides in favor of the top hat and umbrella 
— nobody would ever dream of going out in a 
top hat without an umbrella; it would be like 
letting Baby (bless it) toddle out without its 
nurse. How I do hate a top hat! One lasts 
me a very long while, I can tell you. I only 
wear it when — well, never mind when I wear 
it. It lasts me a very long while. I've had 



148 IDLE THOUGHTS OF AN IDLE FELLOW. 

my present one five years. It was rather old- 
fashioned last summer, but the shape has come 
round again now, and I look quite stylish. 

But to return to our young man and his 
courting. If he starts off with the top hat and 
umbrella, the afternoon turns out fearfully 
hot, and the perspiration takes all the soap out 
of his mustache, and converts the beauti- 
fully arranged curl over his forehead into a 
limp wisp, resembling a lump of sea-weed. 
The Fates are never favorable to the poor 
wretch. If he does by any chance reach the 
door in proper condition, she has gone out with 
her cousin, and won't be back till late. 

How a young lover, made ridiculous by the 
gawkiness of modern costume, must envy the 
picturesque gallants of seventy years ago! 
Look at them (on the Christmas cards), with 
their curly hair and natty hats, their well 
shaped legs encased in smalls, their dainty 
Hessian boots, their ruffling frills, their canes, 
and dangling seals. No wonder the little 
maiden in the big poke bonnet and the light 
blue sash, casts down her eyes, and is com- 
pletely won. Men could win hearts in clothes 
like that. But what can you expect from 
baggy trousers and a monkey jacket? 

Clothes have more effect upon us than we 
imagine. Our deportment depends upon our 
dress. Make a man get into seedy, worn-out 
rags, and he will skulk along v/ith his head 
hanging down, like a man going out to fetch 
his own supper-beer. But deck out the same 
article in gorgeous raiment and fine linen, and 



IDLE THOUGHTS OF AN IDLE FELLOW. 149 

he will strut down the main thoroughfare, 
swinging his cane, and looking at the girls, as 
perky as a bantam cock. 

Clothes alter our very-nature. A man could 
not help being fierce and daring with a plume 
in his bonnet, a dagger in his belt, and a lot 
of puffy white things all down his sleeves. 
But, in an ulster, he wants to get behind a 
lamp-post and call police. 

I am quite ready to admit that you can find 
sterling merit, honest worth, deep affection, 
and all such like virtues of the roast-beef and 
plum-pudding school, as much, and perhaps 
more, under broadcloth and tweed as ever 
existed beneath silk and velvet; but the spirit 
of that knightly chivalry, that "rode a tilt for 
lady's love," and "fought for lady's smiles, " 
needs the clatter of steel and the rustle of 
plumes to summon it from its grave between- 
the dusty folds of tapestry and underneath the 
musty leaves of moldering chronicles. 

The world must be getting old, I think; it 
dresses so very soberly now. We have been 
through the infant period of humanity, when 
we used to run about with nothing on but a 
long, loose robe, and liked to have our feet 
bare. And then came the rough, barbaric 
age, the boyhood of our race. We didn't care 
what we wore then, but thought it nice to tattoo 
ourselves all over, and we never did our hair. 
And, after that, the world grew into a young 
man, and became foppish. It decked itself 
in flowing curls and scarlet doublets, and went 



150 IDLE THOUGHTS OF AN IDLE FELLOW. 

courting, and bragging, and bouncing — mak- 
ing a brave show. 

But all those merry, foolish days of youth 
are gone, and we are very sober, very solemn, 
and very stupid, some say — now. The world 
is a grave, middle-aged gentleman in this 
nineteenth century, and would be shocked to 
see itself with a bit of finery on. So it dresses 
in black coats and trousers, and black hats, 
and black boots, and, dear me, it is such a 
very respectable gentleman — to think it could 
ever have gone gadding about as a troubadour 
or a knight-errant, dressed in all those fancy 
colors ! Ah, well ! we are more sensible in this 
age. 

Or, at least, we think ourselves so. It is a 
general theory nowadays that sense and dulness 
go together. 

Goodness is another quality that always goes 
vv^ith blackness. Very good people indeed, 
you will notice, dress altogether in black, even 
to gloves and neckties, and they will probably 
take to black shirts before long. Medium 
goods indulge in light trousers on week-days 
and some of them even go so far as to wear 
fancy waistcoats. On the other hand, people 
who care nothing for a future state go about 
in light suits; and there have been known 
wretches so abandoned as to wear a white hat. 
Such people, however, are never spoken of in 
genteel society, and perhaps I ought not to 
have referred to them here. 

By the way, talking of light suits, have you 
ever noticed how people stare at you the first 



IDLE THOUGHTS OF AN IDLE FELLOW. 151 

time you go out in a new light suit? They do 
not notice it so much afterwards. The popu- 
lation of London have got accustomed to it by 
the third time you wear it. I say "you," 
because I am not speaking from my own ex- 
perience. I do not wear such things at all 
myself. As I said, only sinful people do so. 

I wish, though, it were not so, and that one 
'Could be good, and respectable, and sensible 
without making one's self a guy. I look in 
the glass sometimes at my two long, cylindri- 
cal bags (so picturesquely rugged about the 
knees), my stand-vip collar, and billycock hat, 
and wonder what right I have to go about 
making God's world hideous. Then wild and 
wicked thoughts come into my heart. I don't 
want to be good and respectable. (I never 
can be sensible, I'm told, so that don't matter.) 
I want to put on lavender-colored tights, with 
red velvet breeches and a green doublet, 
slashed with yellow; to have a light blue silk 
cloak on my shoulder, and a black eagle's 
plume waving from my hat, and a big sword, 
and a falcon, and a lance, and a prancing 
horse, so that I might go about and gladden 
the eyes of the people. Why should we all 
try to look like ants, crawling over a dust-heap? 
Why shouldn't we dress a little gayly? I am 
sure, if we did, we should be happier. True, 
it is a little thing, but we are a little race, 
and what is the use of our pretending other- 
wise, and spoiling fun? Let philosophers get 
themselves up like old crows if they like. But 
let me be a butterfly. 



152 IDLE THOUGHTS OF AN IDLE FELLOW. 

Women, at all events, ought to dress prettily. 
It is their duty. They are the flowers of the 
earth, and were meant to show it up. We 
abuse them a good deal, we men ; but, good- 
ness knows, the old world would be dull enough 
without their dresses and fair faces. How 
they brighten up every place they come into! 
What a sunny commotion they — relations, 
of course — make in our dingy bachelor cham- 
bers! and what a delightful litter their rib- 
bons and laces, and gloves and hats, and 
parasols and 'kerchiefs make! It is as if a 
wandering rainbow had dropped on to pay us 
a visit. 

It is one of the chief charms of the summer, 
to my mind, the way our little maids come out 
in pretty colors. I like to see the pink and 
blue and> white, glancing between the trees, 
dotting the green fields, and flashing back the 
sunlight. You can see the bright colors such 
a long way off. There are four white dresses 
climbing a hill in front of my window now. I 
can see them distinctly, though it is three 
miles away. I thought, at first, they were 
milestones out for a lark. It's so nice to be 
able to see the darlings a long way off. Es- 
pecially if they happen to be your wife and 
your mother-in-law. 

Talking of fields and milestones, reminds me 
that I want to say,, in all seriousness, a few 
words about women's boots. The women of 
these islands all wear boots too big for them. 
They can never get a boot to fit. The boot- 
makers do not keep sizes small enough. 



IDLE THOUGHTS OF AN IDLE FELLOV/. 153 

Over and over again have I known women 
sit down on the top rail of a stile, and declare 
they could not go a step farther, because their 
boots hurt them so; and it has aUvays been 
the same complaint — too big. 

It is time this state of things was altered. 
In the name of the husbands and fathers of 
England, I call upon the bootmakers to reform. 
Our wives, our daughters, and our cousins are 
not to be lamed and tortured with impunity. 
Why cannot "narrow twos" be kept more in 
stock? that is the size I find most women take. 

The waistband is another item of feminine 
apparel that is always too big. The dress- 
makers make these things so loose that the 
hooks and eyes by which they are fastened 
burst off, every now and then, with a report 
like thunder. 

Why women suffer these wrongs — why they 
do not insist in having their clothes made 
small enough for them, I cannot conceive. It 
can hardly be that they are disinclined to 
trouble themselves about matters of mere 
dress, for dress is the one subject that they 
really do think about. It is the only topic they 
ever get thoroughly interested in, and they 
talk about it all day long. If you see two 
women together, 5^ou may bet your bottom 
dollar they are discussing their own or their 
friend's clothes. You notice a couple of child- 
like beings, conversing by a window, and you 
wonder what sweet, helpful words are falling 
from their sainted lips. So you move nearer, 
and then you hear one say : 



154 IDLE THOUGHTS OF AN IDLE FELLOW. 

"So I took in the waistband, and let out a 
seam, and it fits beautifully novv\" 

"Well," says the other, "I shall v/ear my 
plum-colored body to the Jones', with a yel- 
low plastron; and they've got some lovel}^ 
gloves at Puttick's, only one and elevenpence." 

I v/ent for a drive through a part of Derby- 
shire once, with a couple of ladies. It was a 
beautiful bit of country, and they enjoyed 
themselves immensely. They talked dressmak- 
ing the whole time. 

"Pretty view, that," I would say, waving my 
umbrella round. "Look at those blue, distant 
hills! That little v/hi;e speck, nestling in the 
woods, is Chatsworth, and over there — " 

"Yes, very pretty indeed, " one would reply. 

"V\^ell, why not get a yard of sarsenet?" 

"What, and leave the skirt exactly as it is?" 

"Certainly. What place d'ye call this?" 

Then I would draw their attention to the 
fresh beauties that kept sweeping into view, 
and they would glance round, and say "charm- 
ing," "sv\'eetly pretty, " and imm^ediately go off 
into raptures over each other's pocket-hand- 
kerchiefs, and mourn with one another over 
the decadence of cambric frilling. 

I believe if two women were cast together 
upon a desert island, they would spend each 
day arguing the respective merits of sea-shells 
and bird's eggs, considered as trimmings, and 
would have a new fashion in fig-leaves every 
month. 

Very young men think a good deal about 
clothes, but they don't talk about them to each 



IDLE THOUGHTS OF AN IDLE FELLOW. 155 

Other. They would not find much encourag^e- 
ment. A fop is not a favorite with his own 
sex. Indeed, he gets a good deal more abuse 
from them than is necessary. His is a harm- 
less failing, and it soon wears out. Besides, 
a man who has no foppery at twenty will be a 
slatternly, dirty-collar, unbrushed-coat man at 
forty. A little foppishness in a young man is 
good; it is human. I like to see a young cock 
ruffle his feathers, stretch his neck, and crow 
as if the whole world belonged to him. I 
don't like a modest, retiring man. Nobody 
does — not really, however much they may prate 
about modest worth, and other things they do 
not understand. 

A meek deportment is a great mistake in the 
world. Uriah Heep's father was a very poor 
judge of human nature, or he would not have 
told his son, as he did, that people liked hum- 
bleness. There is nothing annoys them more, 
as a rule. Rows are half the fun of life, and 
you can't have rows with humble, meek- 
answering individuals. They turn away our 
wrath, and that is just what we do not want. 
We want to let it out. We have worked our- 
selves up into a state of exhilarating fury, and 
then just as we are anticipating the enjoyment 
of a vigorous set-to, they spoil all our plans 
with their exasperating humility. 

Xantippe's life must have been one long 
misery, tied to that calmly irritating man, 
Socrates. Fancy a married woman doomed to 
live on from day to day without one single 
quarrel with her husband! A man ought to 



156 IDLE THOUGHTS OF AN IDLE FELLOW. 

humor his wife in these things. Heaven 
knows their lives are dull enough, poor girls. 
They have none of the enjoyments we have. 
They go to no political meetings;- they may 
not even belong to the local amateur parlia- 
ment; they are excluded from smoking car- 
riages on the Metropolitan railway, and they 
never see a comic paper — or if they do, they 
do not know it is comic: nobody tells them. 

Surely, with existence such a dreary blank 
for them as this, we might provide a little 
row for their amusement now and then, even 
if we do not feel inclined for it ourselves. A 
really sensible man does so, and is loved 
accordingly, for it is little acts of kindness such 
as this that go straight to a woman's heart. 
It is such like proofs of loving self-sacrifice 
that make her tell her female friends what a 
good husband he was — after he is dead. 

Yes, poor Xantippe must have had a hard 
time of it. The bucket episode was particu- 
larly sad for her. Poor woman ! she did think 
she would rouse him up a bit with that. She 
had taken the trouble to fill the bucket, per- 
haps been a long way to get specially dirty 
water. And she waited for him. And then 
to be met in such a way, after all! Most 
likely she sat down, and had a good cry after- 
wards. It must have seemed all so hopeless 
to the poor child : and, for all we know, she 
had no mother to whom she could go and 
abuse him. 

What was it to her that her husband was a 



IDLE THOUGHTS OF AN IDLE FELLOW. 157 

great philosopher? Great philosophy don't 
count in married life. 

There was a very good little boy once who 
wanted to go to sea. And the captain asked him 
what he could do. He said he could do the mul- 
tiplication table backwards, and paste sea- weed 
in a book; that he knew how many times the 
word "begat" occurred in the Old Testament; 
and could recite "The Boy stood on the Burn- 
ing Deck, "and Wordsworth's "We are Seven." 

"Werry good — werry good, indeed," said the 
man of the sea, "and ken yer kerry coals?" 

It is just the same when you want to marry. 
Great ability is not required so much as little 
usefulness. Brains are at a discount in the 
married state. There is no demand for them, 
no appreciation even. Our wives sum us up 
according to a standard of their own, in which 
brilliancy of intellect obtains no marks. Your 
lady and mistress is not at all impressed by 

our cleverness and talent, my dear reader 

not in the slightest. Give her a man who can 
do an errand neatly, without attempting to use 
his own judgment over it, or any damned non- 
sense of that kind ; and who can be trusted to 
hold a child the right way up, and not make 
himself objectionable whenever there is luke- 
w^arm mutton for dinner. That is the sort of a 
husband a sensible woman likes; not one of 
your scientific or literary nuisances, who go 
upsetting the whole house, and putting every- 
body out with their foolishness. 



158 IDLE THOUGHTS OF AN IDLE FELLOW. 



ON MEMORY. 

"I remember, I remember. 
In the days of chill November, 
How the blackbird on the " 

I forget the rest. It is the beginning of the 
first piece of poetry I ever learnt; for 

"Hey, diddle, diddle. 
The cat and the fiddle." 

I take no note of, it being of a frivolous char- 
acter, and lacking in the qualities of true 
poetry. I collected fourpence by the recital of 
''I remember, I remember." I knew it was 
fourpence, because they told me that if I kept 
it until I got twopence more I should have six- 
pence, which argument, albeit undeniable, 
moved me not, and the money was squandered, 
to the best of my recollection, on the very next 
morning, although upon what memory is a 
blank. 

That is just the way with Memory; nothing 
that she brings to us is complete. She is a 
wilful child ; all her toys are broken. I remem- 
ber tumbling into a huge dust-hole, when a 
very small boy, but I have not the faintest rec- 
ollection of ever getting out again ; and, if 
memory were all we had to trust to, I should 
be compelled to believe I was there still. At 



IDLE THOUGHTS OF AN IDLE FELLOW. 159 

another time — some years later — I was assist- 
ing at an exceeding-ly interesting love scene; 
but the only thing about it I can call to mind 
distinctly is that, at the most critical moment, 
somebody suddenly opened the door and said, 
"Emily, you're wanted," in a sepulchral tone, 
that gave one the idea the police had come for 
her. All the tender words she said to me, and 
all the beautiful things I said to her, are ut- 
terly forgotten. 

Life, altogether, is but a crumbling ruin, 
when we turn to look behind: a shattered col- 
umn here, where a massive portal stood; the 
broken shaft of a window to mark my lady's 
bovvrer; and a moldering heap of blackened 
stones where the glowing flames once leapt, 
and over all, the tinted lichen and the ivy 
clinging green. 

For everything looms pleasant through the 
softening haze of time. Even the sadness that 
is past seems sweet. Our boyish days look 
very merry to us now, all nutting, hoop, and 
ginger-bread. The snubbings and toothaches 
and the Latin verbs are all forgotten — the 
Latin verbs especially. And we fancy we were 
very happy when we were hobbledehoys, and 
loved ; and we wish that we could love again. 
We never think of the heartaches, or the sleep- 
less nights, or the hot dr^mess of our throats, 
when she said she could never be anything to 
us but a sister — as if any man wanted more sis- 
ters! 

Yes, it is the brightness, not the darkness, 
that we see when we look back. The sunshine 



160 IDLE THOUGHTS OF AN IDLE FELLOW. 

casts no shadows on the past. The road that 
we have traversed stretches very fair behind 
us. We see not the sharp stones. We dwell 
but on the roses by the wayside, and the strong- 
briers that stung us aje,to our distant .eyes, but 
gentle, tendrils waving in the w4nd. God be 
thanked that it is so — that the ever-lengthen- 
ing chain of memory has only pleasant links, 
and that the bitterness and sorrow of to-day 
are smiled at on the morrow. 

It seems as though the brightest side of 
everything were also its highest and best, so 
that, as our little lives sink back behind us into 
the dark sea of forgetfulness, all that which is 
the lightest and the most gladsome is the last 
to sink, and stands above the waters, long in 
sight, when the angry thoughts and smarting 
pain are buried deep below the waves and 
trouble us no more. 

It is this glamour of the past, I suppose, that 
makes old folks talk so much nonsense about 
the days when they were young. The world 
appears to have been a very superior sort of 
place then, and things were more like what 
they ought to be. Boys were boys then, and 
girls were very different. Also winters were 
something like winters, and summers not at all 
the wretched things we get put off with nowa- 
days. As for the wonderful deeds people did 
in those times, and the extraordinary events 
that happened, it takes three strong men to 
believe half of them. 

I like to hear one of the old boys telling all 
about it to a party of youngsters who he knows 



IDLE THOUGHTS OF AN IDLE FELLOW. 161 

cannot contradict him. It is odd if, after a 
while he doesn't swear that the moon shone 
every night when he was a boy, and that toss- 
ing mad bulls in a blanket was a favorite 
sport at his schooL 

It always has been, and always will be the 
same. The old folk of our grandfathers' young 
days sang a song bearing exactly the same bur- 
den; and the young folk of to-day will drone 
out precisely similar nonsense for the aggrava- 
tion of the next generation. "Oh, give me 
back the good old days of fifty years ago!" has 
been the cry ever since Adam's fifty-first 
birthday. Take up the literature of 1835, and 
you will find the poets and novelists asking for 
the same impossible gift, as did the German 
Minnesingers, long before them, and the old 
Norse Saga writers long before that. And for 
the same thing, sighed the early prophets and 
the philosophers of ancient Greece. From all 
accounts, the world has been getting worse 
and worse ever since it was created. All I can 
say is that it must have been a remarkably 
delightful place when it was first opened to the 
public, for it is very pleasant, even now, if you 
only keep as much as possible in the sunshine, 
and take the rain good-temperedly. 

Yet there is no gainsaying but what it must 
have been somewhat sweeter in that dewy 
morning of creation, when it was young and 
fresh, when the feet of the trampling millions 
had not trodden its grass to dust, nor the din 
of the myriad cities chased the silence forever 
away. Life must have been noble and solemn 

11 Idle Thoughts 



162 IDLE THOUGHTS OF AN IDLE FELLOW. 

to those free-focted, loose-robed fathers of the 
human race, walking hand-in-hand with God 
under the great sk3^ They lived in sun-kissed 
tents amidst the lowing herds. They took 
their simple wants from the loving hand of 
Nature. They toiled and talked and thought; 
and the great earth rolled around in stillness, 
not yet laden with trouble and wrong. 

Those days are past now. The quiet child- 
hood of Humanity, spent in the far-off forest 
glades, and by the murmuring rivers, is gone 
forever; and human life is deepening down to 
manhood amidst tumult, doubt and hope. Its 
age of restful peace is past. It has its work to 
finish, and must hasten on. What that work 
may be — what this world's share is in the great 
Design — we know not, though our unconscious 
hands are helping to accomplish it. Like the 
tiny coral insect, working deep under the dark 
waters, we strive and struggle each for our 
own little ends, nor dream of the vast Fabric 
we are building up for God. 

Let us have done with vain regrets and long- 
ings for the days that never will be ours again. 
Our work lies in front, not behind us; and 
* 'Forward!" is our motto. Let us not sit with 
folded hands, gazing upon the past as if it were 
the building; it is but the foundation. Let us 
not waste heart and life, thinking of what 
might have been, and forgetting the maybe 
that lies before us. Opportunities flit by while 
we sit regretting the chances we have lost, and 
the happiness that comes to us we heed not, 
because of the happiness that is gone. 



IDLE THOUGHTS OF AN IDLE FELLOW. 163 

Years ago, when I used to wander of an 
evening from the fireside to the pleasant land 
of fairy tales, I met a doughty knight and true. 
Many dangers had he overcome, in m.any lands 
had been ; and all men knew him for a brave 
and well-tried knight and one that knew not 
fear; except, maybe, upon such seasons when 
even a brave man might feel afraid, and yet 
not be ashamed. Now, as this knight, one 
day, was pricking wearily along a toilsome 
road, his heart misgave him, and was sore 
within him, because of the trouble of the way. 
Rocks, dark and of a monstrous size, hung high 
above his head, and like enough it seemed 
unto the knight that they should fall, and he 
lie low beneath them. Chasms there were on 
either side, and darksome caves, wherein fierce 
robbers lived, and dragons very terrible, whose 
jaws dripped blood. And upon the road there 
hung a darkness as of night. So it came over 
that good knight that he would no more press 
forward, but seek another road, less grievously 
beset with difficulty unto his gentle steed. But, 
when in haste he turned and looked behind, 
much marveled our brave knight, for, lo! of 
all the way that he had ridden, there was 
naught for eye to see; but, at his horse's heels 
there yawned a mighty gulf, whereof no man 
might ever spy the bottom, so deep was that 
same gulf. Then, when Sir Ghelent saw that 
of going back there was none, he prayed to 
good Saint Cuthbert, and setting spurs into his 
steed, rode forward bravely and most joyously. 
And nausfht harmed him. 



164 IDLE THOUGHTS OF AN IDLE FELLOW. 

There is no returning on the road of life. 
The frail bridge of Time, on which we tread, 
sinks back into eternity at every step we take. 
The past is gone from us forever. It is gath- 
ered in and garnered. It belongs to us no 
more. No single word can ever be unspoken ; 
no single step retraced. Therefore, it beseems 
us, as true knights, to prick on bravely, not 
idly weep because we cannot now recall. 

A new life begins for us with every second. 
Let us go forward joyously to meet it. We 
must press on, whether we will or no, and we 
shall walk better with our eyes before us than 
with them ever cast behind. 

A friend came to me the other day, and 
urged me very eloquently to learn some won- 
derful system by which you never forgot any- 
thing. I don't know why he was so eager on 
the subject, unless it be that I occasionally 
borrow an umbrella, and have a knack of com- 
ing out, in the middle of a game of whist, with 
a mild, "Lor'! I've been thinking all along 
that clubs Vv^ere trumps." I declined the sug- 
gestion, however, in spite of the advantages he 
so attractively set forth. I have no wish to 
remember everything. There are many things 
in most men's lives that had better be forgot- 
ten. There is that time, many years ago when 
we did not act quite as honorably, quite as up- 
rightly, as we, perhaps, should have done — that 
unfortunate deviation from the path of strict 
probity we once committed, and in which more 
unfortunate still, we were found out — that act 
of folly, of meanness, of wrong. Ah, well! 



IDLE THOUGHTS OF AN IDLE FELLOW. 165 

we paid the penalty, suffered the maddening 
hours of vain remorse, the hot agony of shame, 
the scorn, perhaps, of those we loved. Let us 
forget. Oh, Father Time, lift with your kindly 
hands those bitter memories from off our over- 
burdened hearts, for griefs are ever coming to 
us with the coming hours, and our little 
strength is only as the day. 

Not that the past should be buried. The 
music of life would be mute if the chords of 
memory were snapped asunder. It is but the 
poisonous weeds, not the flowers, that we 
should root out from the garden of Mnemo- 
syne. Do you remember Dicken's "Haunted 
Man," how he prayed for forgetfulness, and 
how, when his prayer was answered, he 
prayed for memory once more? We do not 
want all the ghosts laid. It is only the hag- 
gard, blue-eyed spectres that we flee from. 
Let the gentle, kindly phantoms haunt us as 
they will ; we are not afraid of them. 

Ah me ! the world grows very full of ghosts 
as we grow older. We need not seek in dis- 
mal churchyards nor sleep in moated granges, 
to see their shadowy faces, and hear the rust- 
ling of their garments in the night. Every 
house, every room, every creaking chair has 
its own particular ghost. They haunt the 
empty chambers of our lives, they throng 
round us like dead leaves whirled in the 
autumn wind. Some are living, some are 
dead. We know not. We clasped their hands 
once, loved them, quarreled with them, 
laughed with them, told them our thoughts 



166 IDLE THOUGHTS OF AN IDLE FELLOW. 

and hopes and aims, as the}^ told us theirs, 
till it seemed our very hearts had joined in a 
grip that would defy the puny power of 
Death. They are gone now ; lost to us for- 
ever. Their eyes will never look into ours 
again, and their voices we shall never hear. 
Only their ghosts come to us, and talk with 
us. We see them, dim and shadowy, through 
our tears. We stretch our yearning hands to 
them, but they are air. 

Ghosts! They are with us night and day. 
They walk beside us in the busy street, un- 
der the glare of the sun. They sit by us in 
the twilight at home. We see their little faces 
looking from the windows of the old school- 
house. We meet them in the woods and lanes, 
where we shouted and played as boys. Hark! 
cannot you hear their low laughter from be- 
hind the blackberry bushes, and their distant 
whoops along the grassy glades? Down here, 
through the quiet fields, and b)^ the wood, 
where the evening shadows are lurking, winds 
the path where we used to watch for her at 
sunset. Look, she is there now, in the dainty 
white frock we knew so well, with the big 
bonnet dangling from her little hands, and the 
sunny brown hair all tangled. Five thousand 
miles away ! Dead, for all we know ! What 
of that! She is beside us now, and we can 
look into her laughing eyes, and hear her voice. 
She will vanish at the stile by the wood, and 
we shall be alone ; and the shadows will creep 
out across the fields, and the night wind will 
sweep past, moaning. Ghosts! they are 



IDLE THOUGHTS OF AN IDLE FELLOW. 167 

always with us, and always will be, while the 
sad old world keeps echoing to the sob of long 
good-byes, while the cruel ships sail away 
across the great seas, and the cold, green earth 
lies heavy on the hearts of those we loved. 

But, oh, ghosts, the world would be sadder 
still without you. Come to us, and speak to 
us, O you ghosts of our old loves! Ghosts of 
playmates, and of sweethearts, and old friends, 
of all 3^ou laughing boys and girls, oh, come 
to us, and be with us, for the world is very 
lonely, and new friends and faces are not like 
the old and we cannot love them, nay, nor 
laugh with them as we have loved and laughed 
with you. And when we walked together, O 
ghosts of our youth, the world was very gay 
and bright ; but now it has grown old, and we 
are growing weary, and only you can bring the 
brightness and the freshness back to us. 

Memory is a rare ghost raiser. Like a 
haunted house, its walls are ever echoing to 
unseen feet. Through the broken casements 
we watch the flitting shadows of the dead, and 
the saddest shadows of them all the shadows 
of our own dead selves. 

Oh, those young, bright faces, so full of truth 
and honor, of pure, good thoughts, of noble 
longings, how reproachfully they look upon us, 
with their deep, clear eyes! 

I fear they have good cause for their sorrow, 
poor lads. Lies and cunning and disbelief 
have crept into our hearts since those pre- 
shaving days — and we meant to be so great 
and good. 



168 IDLE THOUGHTS OF AN IDLE FELLOW. 

It is well we cannot see into the future. 
There are few boys of fourteen who would 
not feel ashamed of themselves at forty. 

I like to sit and have a talk sometimes with 
that odd little chap that was myself long ago. 
I think he likes it too, for he comes so often 
of an evening when I am alone with my pipe, 
listening to the whispering of the flames. I 
see his solemn little face looking at me 
through the scented smoke as it floats upward, 
and I smile at him, and he smiles back at 
me, but his is such a grave, old-fashioned smile. 
We chat about old times ; and now and then he 
takes me by the hand, and then we slip 
through the black bars of the grate and down 
the dusky glowing caves, to the land that lies 
behind the firelight. There we find^the days 
that used to be, and we wander along' them to- 
gether. He tells me as we walk all he thinks 
and feels. I laugh at him now and then, but 
the next moment I wish I had not, for he 
looks so grave I am ashamed of being frivo- 
lous. Besides, it is not showing proper re- 
spect to one so much older than myself — to 
one who was myself so very long before I be- 
came myself. 

We don't talk much at first, but look at one 
another : I down at his curly hair and little 
blue brow, he up sideways at me as he trots. 
And, somehow, I fancy the shy, round eyes 
do not altogether approve of me, and he 
heaves a little sigh as though he were disap- 
pointed. But, after a while, his bashfulness 
wears off, and he begins to chat. He tells me 



to 



IDLE THOUGHTS OF AN IDLE FELLOW. 169 

his favorite fairy tales, he can do up to six 
times, and he has a guinea-pig, and pa says 
fairy tales ain't true; and isn't it a pity, 'cos 
he would so like to be a knight and fight a 
dragon and marry a beautiful princess. But he 
takes a more practical view of life when he 
reaches seven, and would prefer to grow up, be 
a bargee, and earn a lot of money. Maybe 
this is the consequence of falling in love, which 
he does about this time, with the young lady 
at the milk-shop, set. six. (God bless her lit- 
tle ever- dancing feet, whatever size they may 
be now !) He must be very fond of her, for 
he gives her one day his chiefest treasure, to 
wit, a huge pocket-knife, with four rusty 
blades and a cork-screw, which latter has a 
knack of working itself out in some mysterious 
manner, and sticking into its owner's leg. She 
is an affectionate little thing, and she throws 
her arms around his neck and kisses him for 
it, then and there, outside the shop. But the 
stupid world (in the person of the boy at the 
cigar emporium next door) jeers at such 
tokens of love. Whereupon my young friend 
very properly prepares to punch the head of 
the boy at the cigar emporium next door; but 
fails in the attempt, the boy at the cigar em- 
porium next door punching his instead. 

And then comes school life, with its bitter 
little sorrows and its joyous shoutings, its jolly 
larks, and its hot tears falling on beastly Latin 
grammars and silly old copy-books. It is at 
school that he injures himself for life — as I 
firmly believe — trying to pronounce German; 



170 IDLE THOUGHTS OF AN IDLE FELLOW. 

and it is there, too, that he learns of the im- 
portance attached by the French nation to 
pens, ink, and paper. ''Have you pens, ink 
and paper?" is the first question asked by one 
Frenchman of another on their meeting. The 
other fellow has not any of them, as a rule, 
but sa^^s that the uncle of his brother has got 
them all three. The first fellow doesn't appear 
to care a hang about the uncle of the other 
fellow's brother: what he wants to know now 
is, has the neighbor of the other fellow's 
mother got 'em? "The neighbor of my 
mother has no pens, no ink, and no paper," 
replies the other man, beginning to get wild. 
"Has the child of thy female gardener some 
pens, some ink, or some paper?" He has him 
there. After worrying enough about these 
wretched inks, pens, and papers to make every- 
body miserable, it turns out that the child of 
his own female gardener hasn't any. Such a 
discovery would shut up any one but a French 
exercise man. It has no effect at all, though, 
on this shameless creature. He never thinks 
of apologizing, but says his aunt had some 
mustard. 

So, in the acquisition of more or less useless 
knowledge, soon happily to be forgotten, boy- 
hood passes away. The red-brick schoolhouse 
fades from view, and we turn down into the 
world's high-road. My little friend is no longer 
little now. The short jacket has sprouted 
tails. The battered cap so useful as a com- 
bination of pocket-handkerchief, drinking cup, 
and weapon of attack, has grown high and 



IDLE THOUGHTS OF AN IDLE FELLOV.\ ■.71 

glossy; and instead of a slate-pencil in his 
mouth there is a cigarette, the smoke of which 
troubles him, for it will get up his nose. He 
tries a cigar a little later on, as being more 
stylish — a big, black Havana. It doesn't seem 
altogether to agree with him, for I find him 
sitting over a bucket in the back kitchen after- 
ward, solemnly swearing never to smoke 
again. 

And now his mustache begins to be almost 
visible to the naked eye, whereupon he im- 
mediately takes to brandy-and-sodas, and fan- 
cies himself a man. He talks about ''two to 
one against the favorite," refers to actresses 
as "Little Emmy," and "Kate," and "Baby," 
and murmurs about his "losses at cards the 
other night," in a style implying that thou- 
sands have been squandered, though, to do 
him justice, the actual amount is most prob- 
ably one-and-twopence. Also, if I see aright 
— for it is always twilight in this land of 
memories — he sticks an eyeglass in his ej^e, 
and stumbles everything. 

His female relations, much troubled at these 
things, pray for him (bless their gentle 
hearts!) and see visions of Old Bailey trials and 
halters as the only possible outcome of such 
reckless dissipation ; and the prediction of his 
first schoolmaster, that he would come to a 
bad end, assumes the proportions of inspired 
prophecy. 

He has a lordly contempt at this age for the 
other sex, a blatantly good opinion of himself, 
and a sociably patronizing manner toward all 



172 IDLE THOUGHTS OF AN IDLE FELLOW. 

the elderly male friends of the family. Alto- 
g-ether, it must be confessed, he is somewhat 
of a nuisance about this time. 

It does not last long, though. He falls in 
love in a little while, and that soon takes the 
bounce out of him. I notice his boots are 
much too small for him now, and his hair is 
fearfulljT- and wonderfully arranged. He reads 
poetry more than he used, and he keeps a 
rhyming dictionary in his bedroom. Every 
morning, on the floor, Emily Jane finds scraps 
of torn-up paper, and reads thereon of "cruel 
hearts and love's deep darts," of "beauteous 
eyes and lovers sighs," and much more of the 
old, old song that lads so love to sing, and las- 
sies love to listen to, while giving their dainty 
heads a toss, and pretending never to hear. 

The course of love, however, seems not to 
have run smoothly, for, later on, he takes 
more walking exercise and less sleep, poor 
boy, than is good for him ; and his face is sug- 
gestive of anything but wedding bells and hap- 
piness ever after. 

And here he seems to vanish. The little, 
boyish self that has grown up beside me as we 
walked, is gone. 

I am alone, and the road is very dark. I 
stumble on, I know not how nor care, for the 
ways seems leading nowhere, and there is no 
light to guide. 

But at last the morning comes, and I find 
that I have grown into myself. 

THE END. 



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